Conoco Oil has proposed to drill an exploratory well just off the Burr Trail road in southern Utah. The well would involve two acres of BLM land and require construction of a 50-foot-long "road." Sounds reasonable enough. Given the prospect of generating wealth for the poorest region of the state, the possibility of well-paying natural resource jobs and the potential for generous mineral lease revenues to the state, what could possibly be wrong with such a minuscule proposal?
It threatens the wilderness suitability of the 16,400-acre Long Canyon unit of the Utah Wilderness Coalition's proposed federal wilderness lockup. That's what's wrong with it. Or so says a spokesperson for the infamous Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. You know SUWA. This is the northern Utah-based, extremist political action group with an annual tax-exempt budget in excess of $1.3 million that demands that our lands be dedicated to their elitist purposes.Imagine two acres and 50 feet of road next to an existing road. Zippo. No more wilderness for 26 square miles or so it would have us believe. SUWA's position on the proposed Conoco exploratory well illustrates just how irrational, demanding and self-important it and the rest of the radical environmental groups have become. They have no credibility other than in Washington where they find ample kindred spirits and in the press, which seems to relish their outlandish, rhetorical excesses and childlike ranting. It is a tragedy for future generations that a disinterested public allows this extreme voice to dominate public policy for that 70 percent of the state of Utah that is controlled by the federal government.
Tara Gage
Levan