San Rafael Swell as Wilderness Area

[lewis]

So I heard on the radio today that some yahoo went and toured the San Rafael Swell to see if it needed to be made into a wilderness area. I didn't catch the name of the person because they said his name first and then talked about the swell and then I started listening. Anyways he came to the conclusion that he will definitely push for it to be wilderness area. Just wondering what this means for the Swell if it is made into wilderness area? What if anything can be done?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Been in the news this year, one after another pushing to make it a Wilderness or National Monument. Fingers crossed it never happens. Wilderness = horrendously lost access and Monuments mean tour buses and pavement. Neither of which is what the Swell needs.

If 150 years of homesteading, farming, ranching, bombing, mining, OHV use, drilling and general recreation doesn't disqualify a place from being Wilderness under modern standards... then what do we really need to protect if from? Seems like its doing just fine no?

 

[lewis]

They also said that it would bring in business and money for the local towns around there which they said they needed. It didn't make sense to me since it seems like less people would go there? I am so confused. I like the idea of just leaving it alone.

 

[ttora4runner]

So I heard on the radio today that some yahoo went and toured the San Rafael Swell to see if it needed to be made into a wilderness area. I didn't catch the name of the person because they said his name first and then talked about the swell and then I started listening. Anyways he came to the conclusion that he will definitely push for it to be wilderness area. Just wondering what this means for the Swell if it is made into wilderness area? What if anything can be done?

Did he say what area the individual toured? When we were all down there last year I didn't notice really any abuse to the area. Expect around that mine .

I'm in agreement just leave the area as is.

 

[Herzog]

They need to leave the Swell alone. Those bastards didn't even know about it until about 5-10 years ago. It's doing just fine without them.

 

[Cody]

Shit, they didn't know about it 20-30 years ago before the enviro's started this prompting the county to grade roads through it all.

I can see how a monument could bring in more tourism dollars, I mean look how many more people have "grand staircase NM" on their map and head down there....although Escalante and Boulder don't appear to be booming from tourism dollars.

 

[anderson750]

My news guy called me today asking about this. I will find out tomorrow who it was. As far as NPR saying it would bring in more business........consider who it is coming from.

NPR=Greeny=SUWA. Might be a little bias here.

 

[jackjoh]

More of the same. The steam is building for the big push all over the west while the Democrats are still in power. I think the next big push will be after the election and the lame duck Democrats will have nothing to lose. It almost seems like this was planned.

I was looking at the calendar and noticed that November 2nd, Election Day, is also "Day of the Dead" (Mexico) which looks like a bad omen for the Democrats.