Ken Rait, of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), said to Gov. Leavitt, "No thanks, Mr. Governor - please keep your enterprise zones away from our wilderness," in his July 30 Deseret News My View article ("Spare Escalante region from power grab").
Clive Kincaid, the founder of SUWA, also was very possessive about southern Utah. His "vision for southern Utah was to sit on top of the Aquarius Plateau at night and be unable to see a light in any direction," according to James Conaway's book "Kingdom in the Country."What are the people in a circle 150 miles from the Aquarius Plateau supposed to do, move or just go without electricity? The average elevation of Boulder Mountain's rim is 10,800 feet. From the rim you can see the Book Cliffs north of Moab and Green River in the northeast south to the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona.
The "power grab" is on the part of SUWA, who would like to move everyone but themselves out of southern Utah.
How would the people of northern Utah feel if the "vision" of the founder of the Northern Utah Wilderness Alliance was to sit on top of the Wasatch Mountains at night and "be unable to see a light in any direction"?
Rait complains about the negative view of environmentalists held by the people of southern Utah. Would the people of northern Utah have a higher view if their homes and livelihoods were at stake by such arrogance on the part of environmentalists?
Rait talks about "disguises" and "veils" in Gov. Leavitt's proposal, but why didn't he say that the bill proposed by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., was simply a pre-packaged bill written by SUWA, setting aside 5,700,000 acres of Utah BLM lands as wilderness. That is an area about the size of Vermont or New Hampshire and larger than any of the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware or Hawaii. Do you notice that that is larger or equal to six out of the thirteen original states and only slightly smaller than Maryland?
If the people of the West do not rapidly follow George Washington's advice "to know and value their own rights" and "to discern and provide against invasions of them," then those rights will be held by SUWA and the other environmentalists.
M.I. Cox
Riverton