Read our Winter 2011 newsletter

Our Winter 2011 newsletter is out. Please click the link below to read about:

• How Partners is aiding efforts to remove Russian olive in the Escalante River watershed
• Upcoming volunteer projects
• A recap of a science talk in January that packed the Kanab City Library

Winter 2011 newsletter

Happy reading, and thanks for your interest and support.

–Beth Kampschror, Communications Coordinator

Uranium mining meeting Wednesday! Please attend!

Please attend a public meeting in Fredonia next week and make your voice heard about uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. And if you can’t make the meeting, please comment on the draft environmental impact statement related to that mining.

In 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar halted new uranium mining on around 1 million acres of land near Grand Canyon National Park. The temporary moratorium, he said, would allow federal agencies to do an environmental review and decide whether mining claims should be halted for a longer period. (Please click on the following map link to see where those acres are.)

Area map showing affected land outlined in red

That review is now upon us. The Bureau of Land Management has worked up what’s called a draft environmental impact statement and is accepting public comments on the draft until April 4. Here’s what you can do:

* Read the draft statement, and get informed about the four alternatives the federal agencies are considering.
* Attend a BLM meeting on the subject at the Fredonia High School Media Center (221 East Hortt St., Fredonia, AZ) on Wednesday, March 9, at 6 pm.
* Submit public comments on the draft statement. These comments need to be in writing. Please email your comments to NAZproposedwithdrawal@azblm.org, or mail them to:

BLM – Arizona Strip District
345 E. Riverside Dr.
St. George UT 84790

This public comment period isn’t just for our local members. Grand Canyon National Park, just like Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, is public land that belongs to all Americans. Please make your voice heard.

–Noel Poe, President

Hot off the press: Our Fall 2010 newsletter!

Our Fall 2010 newsletter is out! Read all about:

• the new dinosaurs discovered on the Monument
• our work in promoting conservation on the Monument
• the Southern Utah Oral History project
• our new executive director, Roger Cole

Click on the link below to view the PDF version.

Fall 2010 newsletter

 

Behind the scenes in Vegas

Editor’s note: Partners board and staff went to Vegas earlier this month to hit up two conferences: One that gathered around 40 friends groups like us, and another that gathered BLM managers and others to discuss the direction of the National Conservation Lands (of which Grand Staircase has been a part since 2000). Partners President Noel Poe gives his impressions here.

Hey, I just returned from Las Vegas. Nope, I didn’t strike it rich in the casinos but, in a sense, struck it rich at two conferences.

Friends Rendezvous:

The first conference was put on by Conservation Lands Foundation, a 501(c)(3) support foundation that has given Partners what’s called Capacity Building Grants for the past three years. I was invited to give a 10 minute talk about Partners to the CLF Board of Directors. Two other friends groups were also invited – Friends of Ironwood Forest and Friends of the Missouri Breaks. Among the three of us, we knocked the Board dead. Each of us shared two success stories about our support organization. It was the first time I had shown a Powerpoint presentation since I retired in 2007. I shared Partners’ success with the native plant restoration and Kanab High School, plus the improved relationship between Partners and the National Monument staff. The Board had allotted 30 minutes for the three of us and 30 minutes for questions. The session, however, lasted over 1.5 hours and didn’t break for lunch until 12:30 p.m. It was a good time and we got a free lunch — Vice President Rich Csenge and Executive Director Roger Cole accompanied me.

Other highlights from that conference included former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt as the keynote speaker. I had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Babbitt before dinner. We talked about him giving us an oral history recording of his time as Secretary and the effort to establish Grand Staircase under a Presidential Proclamation. Not only did he agree to the interview, but he said: “I would love to, because Grand Staircase was the first of NLCS!” Several of us have heard Mr. Babbitt talk about the details of preparing and issuing the proclamation in 1996. His interview will be an exciting one to read when it is finished. (Partners is helping fund an oral history project that has gathered nearly 300 interviews since 1998 – more on that in our upcoming fall newsletter. The historian who runs the project is now focused on interviewing people involved in the establishment of the Monument, those both pro and con.)

Later in the evening, Mr. Babbitt told a group of us that he must be getting old, because some youngster had come up to him and asked: “Who are you? I don’t think we have met yet.” Mr. Babbitt said he hadn’t been asked that question at previous Rendezvous. We later learned that the “youngster” in question was the 34-year-old son of our past president Steve Roberts, who had accompanied his dad to the event.

Sunday afternoon Steve Roberts and I went out to Red Rocks National Conservation Area to help with a service project. We didn’t do much work as we got there late, but we ate hamburgers and had a couple beers provided by the Friends of Red Rocks. That evening was neat because BLM Director Bob Abbey came to dinner. Steve and I had considerable time with him discussing Partners efforts to promote conservation, science and education on the Monument.

BLM Summit:

Monday and Tuesday, Steve and I participated in the second Conference billed as the BLM National Landscape Conservation System summit. (That’s a system, also known as the National Conservation Lands, made up of unique BLM areas that have been designated with a primary focus of conservation, science and education.) There were just over 300 attendees with about 200 BLM managers and 112 partners of BLM. Of the 112 partners, there were 22 friends groups represented. Director Abbey and key Washington and Utah State BLM staff were present. As you can guess, Steve and I didn’t let that opportunity get away without us using it.

Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to the summit, but unfortunately only spent about 30 minutes as he was en route to Washington, D.C. His speech was charged up and he challenged the partners and mangers to work together in a new spirit of conservation. Before leaving, Salazar signed a Secretarial Order putting teeth into the 2009 legislation that formally established the Conservation Lands and the subsequent policies directing how these lands should be managed. The BLM managers I talked to thought this Order was a really big deal. It made TV news in Las Vegas that evening.

It was a great five days, but the next trip to Vegas I have to get on the blackjack table and support the Nevada education system. (I learned that most of Nevada’s casino money is earmarked for education – a good reason to gamble, except none of the money goes to the Kanab and Escalante students. Probably better just to make an outright donation to the local schools!)

–Noel Poe, Partners President