Last-minute push to save large swaths of land, water
SALT LAKE CITY — Conservation groups are airing TV ads, planning rallies and creating parody websites in a lastminute blitz to stop Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from downsizing or eliminating national monument areas that cover large swaths of land and water from Maine to California.
The deadline for Zinke to announce his recommendations is Thursday following a four-month review of 27 sites ordered by President Trump.
The outdoor recreation industry has hammered home its message that peeling back protections on areas where its customers hike, bike and camp could prevent future generations from enjoying the sites.
In addition, the Wilderness Society has created a parody website featuring Trump and Zinke selling luxury real estate at the sites.
Groups that want to see the areas reduced have been less vociferous, pleading their cases on social media and working behind the scenes to lobby federal officials.
They say past presidents have misused a century-old law to create monuments that are too large and stop energy development, grazing, mining and other uses.
Stan Summers, a Utah county commissioner who chairs a group that advocates for multiuse of public lands, said outdoor recreation companies are peddling lies and misconceptions when they say local officials want to bulldoze monument lands.
Summers said residents treasure the lands that comprise Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah, but don’t want to close the areas to new oil drilling and mining that produce good jobs.
The review includes sweeping sites mostly in the West that are home to ancient cliff dwellings, towering sequoia trees, deep canyons or ocean habitats roamed by seals, whales and sea turtles.
Zinke has already removed six areas in Montana, Colorado, Idaho and Washington from consideration for changes. He also said Bears Ears on tribal land in Utah should be downsized.
Environmental groups said the 1906 Antiquities Act is intended to shield significant historical and archaeological sites, and that it allows presidents to create the monuments but only gives Congress the power to modify them.
They have vowed to file lawsuits if Trump attempts to rescind or reduce the monument designations.
No other president has tried to eliminate a monument, but they have trimmed and redrawn boundaries 18 times, according to the National Park Service.