ESCALANTE -- Steve Gessig has used a paint brush as his weapon in the war over wilderness.
The signs he has painted along his pasture fence declare: "No monument, No wilderness" and "Listen to us for once, we live here."It's part of the rhetoric of rebellion that just grows louder here in the red rock canyons of southern Utah.
At issue are attempts by federal land managers to protect the 1.9 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt is expected to sign the much-contested management plan for the monument Monday.
If he does, Garfield County is prepared to sue.
"The county protested the plan, and we've got the lawsuit ready as soon as it's implemented," said Louise Liston, a Garfield County commissioner.
The most contentious issues the county wants to argue in court are the proposed closing of hundreds of miles of dirt roads and trails to vehicles, and the plan's threat to prevent towns outside the monument from tapping the water in rivers and springs inside it.
In general, the national monument has drilled into a deep well of discontent in Garfield County, where residents see the backbone of rural culture -- ranching, mining, logging -- being rubbed raw against the stone wall of environmental protection. There is a feeling that this is the last stand for a way of life, and that generates a level of desperation.
"Every new regulation squeezes us tighter and tighter," said Escalante Valley rancher Curtis Coyle. "We're just about to the point of no longer existing."
That feeling is strong in Escalante, a town of about 1,000 independent souls. It has been cattle country since the 1800s. Cows still outnumber people about five to one. Yet like the entire West, the area is changing. Bistros and art galleries have moved into town. Newly arrived "green" groups, like the Nature Conservancy and Great Old Broads for Wilderness, have set up shop and are campaigning for more limits on traditional industry, in the name of environmental protection.
To ranchers, these are all changes to fear and to fight.
"It's been a touchy issue," said Clare Ramsay, a Garfield County commissioner. In the Old West, he adds, there were gunfights over watering holes.
And while access to dirt roads in the monument has generated the most rhetoric, water remains a big issue in this area, where the average rainfall is 7 inches a year.
Under the management plan, the nearby towns could get permission to use the water -- if they can prove their water systems won't hurt wildlife. But "it's all very vague," complained Escalante Mayor Lenza Wilson.
The town of Escalante is using every drop it gets from springs that flow out of the Pine Creek drainages. And even though it was a wetter-than-usual summer, the town has issued a moratorium on water hookups.
"It will stay in place until the city can obtain more water rights," said Wilson. Without new water, he adds, the city can't grow.
The city is counting on a new reservoir proposed on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land in the upper Escalante River drainages. That project has been put on hold while officials study whether it would affect ecosystems within the monument.
Gov. Mike Leavitt sympathizes with Escalante's water woes.
In a letter to Babbitt, Leavitt says the plan is too restrictive when it comes to water.
"Communities near the monument may see growth in the next few years, especially if the monument's visitor facilities are located within those communities. These communities may need additional water," Leavitt said.
Yet nobody -- even state officials -- expects the plan to be modified.
Leavitt, whose mantra has been negotiation rather than litigation, has agreed to use state funds to help Garfield and other counties sue over the monument management plan. Ironically, Babbitt agrees litigation may be the only means left to resolve road access, water use and other thorny land issues raised in the plan.
"We have worked on that one (the roads issue) awfully hard for all these years, and we need guidance from the courts," Babbitt told the Deseret News.
Liston said the county must wait until it can prove damages before taking the government to court. And that won't be soon enough for Garfield County, where 96 percent of the land is publicly owned and there is a sense of rising frustration with federal rules and regulations. And for Escalante, which is in the heart of the monument and straddled by national parks, the monument may have been the last straw.
"Everything just continues to tighten the noose," said Liston. "We're desperate."
Tensions run most deep with environmentalists. And part of the hostility could stem from envy.
"Environmentalists are more organized," said Kim Keefe, secretary of New Escalante Irrigation Co. "They are better lobbyers."
Gessig wants to change that. His signs are just the start.
A house painter, Gessig has organized rallies and tried to encourage membership in People for USA, a group formed to counter environmentalists.
People for USA espouses principles similar to the Wise Use movement, which seeks fewer environmental restrictions and more local control over federal land.
"I don't need the federal government telling me what to do with my property," thundered Barry Barnson, a 52-year-old rancher. All he wants is for his children to be able to live and work out here the way his family always has, he said.
Not everyone in Escalante fears the national monument, which President Clinton created three years ago in a surprise move that still angers Utah politicians.
Imi Kun, a Hungarian immigrant who manages a restaurant, said the monument will boost the economy. "This area is perfect for tourists who want to see a natural area. . . . Clinton did a good thing."
He sees the opposition to the monument as a nostalgic yearning by locals for a time when cowboys roamed the range on horseback without interference from government or big city outsiders, he said.
Others support the national monument for their own personal interests, but they aren't vocal about it for fear of reprisals.
Tourists had never heard of the Escalante before the monument was established, said one business owner who requested anonymity. Since then, though, their numbers, and economic impact on local businesses and property values, have increased, he said. "Clinton put Escalante on the map."
That's precisely what annoys some.
"If the environmentalists would have just shut up and left it alone they could have had their private park," said Marjie Lee Spencer, a retired schoolteacher and rancher.
To Gessig, the monument cuts into the soul of the town.
"We are farmers, cattlemen, loggers, roughnecks, miners -- everyday working people living in and managing the surrounding land for the past 125 years," he said. "We perfected the land, and now because of federal encroachment we stand to lose traditional use of it."
Staff writer Jerry D. Spangler contributed to this story.