To the editor:
The Utah County Chapter of Utah Statewide Archeological Society (USAS) wishes to thank you for your recent article (May 3) regarding the sale of state school trust lands that contain archaeological sites. We also definitely agree with your May 7 editorial column, "Protect Indian artifacts in any school land sales," calling for further study of this issue.When these state lands were set aside to benefit schools, there was little or no interest in protecting or studying prehistoric remains. There were so many sites that it appears no consideration was given to the fact that they could someday disappear.
It is an oxymoron that the sale of lands set aside to benefit schoolchildren would destroy sites that help us to gain more understanding of the prehistoric residents of this area. This limits the knowledge we have to pass on to our children in school.
We believe the narrow view of the Division of State Lands and Forestry - that (to quote your May 3 article) "the presence of archaeological ruins on the lands is not an overriding factor in deciding whether to sell state lands, and the division imposes no requirements for mitigating of those cultural resources once the land is sold" - teaches our children that money is the most important consideration in anything we do.
It was our understanding that the Utah Legislature had done something to protect these sites, that the current State Antiquities Law, as amended in 1990, would guarantee that consideration would be taken regarding what was on the land before it was sold.
We believe that state trust lands should not be sold without a process to include the: 1) identification of sites, 2) determination of their significance, and 3) either the preservation of the important sites, or recovery of the information they contain.
You mentioned that there might be a negative impact on the state school trust fund if sites are not sold. The land in question, in this case, is in the Four Corners area. Tourism is a multimillion-dollar-a-year business there.
Rather than sell these precious sites for a one-time gain, the economic potential of protecting and at the same time developing these cultural resources could generate vastly greater ongoing financial benefits for our schools. This, too, is something that should be studied.
Sharon L. Gant, president
Utah County Chapter, USAS
Orem