The Utah Wilderness Association recently attempted to initiate proceedings designed to designate some 300,000 acres of Emery County's San Rafael Swell as a sixth national park.
Emery County opposes any park designation in the county. This position is supported by the Emery County Chapter of the Western Association of Land Users.First, it must be understood that the concept of national parks is evolving in Congress. Legislative initiatives in preparation or now before Congress would grant park superintendents the right to conduct regional planning, injunctive powers over projects outside parks and the right of eminent domain.
Other legislation would restructure the National Park Service as an independent agency outside the Department of Interior. The Park Service would submit its budget directly to Congress. Still more legislation would grant the service up to $300 million dollars per year to be used to buy more land, which it could condemn with its proposed power of eminent domain.
In total, these initiatives and others create virtual new government at the local level. This new government would be unelected and unaccountable at the local and state levels. With such powers and the funding to assert these powers, what chance does southern Utah, with five national parks, a national recreation area, and several national monuments, have to chart its own destiny?
Under these circumstances, who could question the wisdom of Emery County in objecting to a sixth park in the heart of the county and adjacent to existing coal fields, power plants, and other developable resources?
The people of Emery County are the first to recognize the beauty and wonder of the San Rafael. Much of its wonder comes from the sense of freedom one gets when visiting there.
Much of this sense of freedom derives precisely from the fact that it is not designated by Congress as anything. It has not been circumscribed, labeled and interpreted. It just is. We cannot see why it cannot continue to be without the "help" of Congress or self-styled environmental organizations in search of an issue.
The park experience begins with a fee payment, a check-in at the visitor center, and then it is time to have "fun" in a manner prescribed by park supervisors. Not everyone craves this type of experience and, so far, you don't have to put up with it on "The Swell."
The Utah Wilderness Association has argued that park designation will create a "year-round recreational base." The association does not attempt to explain why Moab and Escalante, which are surrounded by parks, do not enjoy a year-round economic base.
The fact is that tourism does not and will not of itself support viable economies or livable wages. It is unlikely also that any tourism economy a park might foster would compensate for foregone economic activity in other sectors such as mining and agriculture.
Park advocates are often their own worst enemy when they try to "sell" the park idea to wiser skeptics.
Terry Martin, representing the National Park Conservation Association, argued vigorously against improving airport facilities at Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell just weeks before two separate crashes killed two people and injured three. Her organization has successfully blocked improvement to the dangerous strip for years, arguing that there was "no need" for improvement.
In July 1989, the Sierra Club "won" a federal injunction blocking expansion of an existing motel on the little-developed North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Sierra Club is arguing that the motel would "distract from the experience" of visiting the Grand Canyon.
Would the Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and others benefit from a San Rafael park? The public record is clear. These and other elitist organizations would flex their iron political grip around the economic neck of the county, and the county and the state as a whole would suffer as a result.
Emery County refuses to accept the Utah Wilderness Association premise that not designating a San Rafael park is akin to "destroying the Swell's inherent values." These values have existed alongside man's activities including mining, recreation and industrial growth, and they will continue to exist under the management and protection of the Bureau of Land Management.
Emery County sees nothing that cries out for "salvation" by either the NPS or the Utah Wilderness Association. We do, however, see a desperate need to stand in defense of basic freedoms of use and access on the land. Checking federal government expansionism and preserving freedom is a far more important legacy for future generations than any park could ever be.
Emery County and the Emery County Chapter of the Western Association of Land Users believe in protecting natural values on the San Rafael Swell. We believe that this is being done under existing management practices.
There simply is no ecological imperative or economic justification for any form of park designation on the San Rafael Swell.
(Jason Branson is president of the Western Association of Land Users, and his view also represents the Emery County Commission.)