San Juan County, Utah, is 92 percent owned by the federal government and it wants to take more. If the feds take more land and turn this county into a national monument then many people in this area will be out of jobs, homes, recreational activities, etc.
We will lose wood gathering, guiding and hunting, piñon gathering and plant and herb gathering for Native and Anglo peoples, as well as ATV and horseback riding. There will be nothing left except for tourism and that isn’t a big deal in this county. Our mountain and archaeological sites will be looted and vandalized by tourists. The Grand Staircase has had over 1,400 cases of vandalism in the last year and we have had 25 incidents in the last five years.
We take care of our own mountain. Please write your congressmen and women and the president to have this national monument be cut out of the president’s agenda. Let them build a national monument in the Smoky Mountains, how about somewhere in the Midwest? We don’t need it here.
Carol Brown
Blanding, Utah
