Access Fund Will Sue Federal Government to Defend Bears Ears National Monument

bus driver wrote:

Some of us have seen the tour busses and hoards of

people that get attracted to a green dot on a map that were not there before. 

And some of us have spent 5 days at some of the green dots on the map and saw no one.

Marc801 C wrote:

And some of us have spent 5 days at some of the green dots on the map and saw no one.

I live next to a major climbing area with a top selling route guide, it's terrible. The government rarely makes situations like this better, just different. Add in a shitter, a park bench, and some fees...waallaa, all sorts of new human traffic. Yellowstone and Yosemite are shining examples of the saddest preserves in North America. But hey, the ground without oil or valuable minerals is protected from those greedy corporations you plow money into for your car and plastic lifestyle. Hooray! 

As a couple of climbers Alexis Krauss of the band Sleigh Bells and I have launched a self-supported campaign focusing on the land grab. With the help of other musicians we have written an original song (in mix stage now), spent time in Bears Ears with the Utah Dine Bikeyah and Tribal elders, and created the above trailer. Song release and accompanying full-length video are set to be released through her management mid-month, and every dollar raised will go to the lawsuits.

After a week embedded with the tribes it is clear just how much they need the land, and it goes far beyond our other cause of conservation for recreation. In any case, if you want to lend your voice to the video we are crowd-sourcing content: as part of the piece we are looking for folks to send footage in featuring themselves holding homemade signs that read "our land." 5-sec clip (phone is just fine) and shot horizontal. Emailed to ourland27@gmail.com

We know this is a contentious issue, and feel grateful for the mountains of support we've been shown throughout the process. 

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

I live next to a major climbing area with a top selling route guide, it's terrible. The government rarely makes situations like this better, just different. Add in a shitter, a park bench, and some fees...waallaa, all sorts of new human traffic. Yellowstone and Yosemite are shining examples of the saddest preserves in North America. But hey, the ground without oil or valuable minerals is protected from those greedy corporations you plow money into for your car and plastic lifestyle. Hooray! 

It's not perfect, but it's better than letting industry chew it up and spit it out.  Ever been to the Sequoia stump forest?  You should visit.  Oddly, the 1,000-2,000 yr. old trees that were harvested weren't of much use because the Sequoia wood splinters easily. It's a good lesson in what an absence of stewardship can make.  

Fat Dad wrote:

It's not perfect, but it's better than letting industry chew it up and spit it out.  Ever been to the Sequoia stump forest?  You should visit.  Oddly, the 1,000-2,000 yr. old trees that were harvested weren't of much use because the Sequoia wood splinters easily. It's a good lesson in what an absence of stewardship can make.  

Except that wasn't happening in BE. I've been to BE and the Sequioas. I've also been to the smoldering remains of forests lit on fire by ELF.

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

Except that wasn't happening in BE.

You have yet to answer this question:

Morgan Patterson wrote:

Ya know Ray... if there's no interest in exploiting the area.. why is it a problem to make it a monument? And why are there O&G&U companies seeking to shrink the monument and paying money and lobbyist to accomplish this goal?

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

The NM still exists, just a smaller size. There is quite a bit of land that should not have been included in the NM...

Why?

 which was a complaint ignored by Obama.

Yet the NM is smaller than what was being requested by supporters of the NM. 

There was very little justification for the original size of the monument

There is massive justification....and for a NM 4x larger.

 other than a liberal administration sticking its finger in the eye of a conservative state.

Only someone deeply into partisan politics would suggest this.

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

Yes, both. BLM maintains state land as well as federal land.

News to me. Do you have a reference for this?

Are you referring to all those little SITLA in-holdings?

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

Except that wasn't happening in BE. I've been to BE and the Sequioas. I've also been to the smoldering remains of forests lit on fire by ELF.

So is your point that you wait until the area is damaged by mineral extraction, etc., and only then do you have a basis for preserving it?

Marc801 C wrote:

You have yet to answer this question:

Does it require a response or do you need rhetorical questions answered? Corporation invest in activities they think might produce a profit. It's not a secret that the state of Utah allowed AnG and mineral companies to explore for oil, gas, and minerals. As has already been mentioned several times, the results were underwhelming to say the least. I also would assume those same companies that own the mineral leases don't want their investments to evaporate with the stroke of a pen. With that said, it certainly doesn't mean the entire area is going to become an open face mine like Butte, MT or the Oquirrhs. I've been to the BE and some of what was designated the NM is just empty space.

I'm not going line for line on all of your questions. You can call it a cop out but I have a life that limits the amount of time I'm willing to spend arguing with you online.

Fat Dad wrote:

So is your point that you wait until the area is damaged by mineral extraction, etc., and only then do you have a basis for preserving it?

So your point is the federal government can trample State's rights with little or no cause? Why not just make all state land federal or the entire state a NM? 

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

I've been to the BE and some of what was designated the NM is just empty space.

That's the entire effing point!

I guess in your world view, the Grand Canyon is just a useless empty hole in the ground; Yosemite Valley is just mostly a meadow and the rest of Yosemite is just empty space as well. Of all the stuff you've written, this is easily the most ludicrous.

I'm not going line for line on all of your questions. You can call it a cop out but I have a life that limits the amount of time I'm willing to spend arguing with you online.

The typical troll response when they no longer have a defensible argument. 

You'll never change your mind, nor are you worth the effort. Thread closed.

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

So your point is the federal government can trample State's rights with little or no cause? Why not just make all state land federal or the entire state a NM? 

“No cause”?  This was done pursuant to federal law expressly created for that purpose after uears of discussion.  

Marc801 C wrote:

You'll never change your mind, nor are you worth the effort. Thread closed.

I get the feeling you have a hard time understanding people with a view different than your own.

Fat Dad wrote:

“No cause”?  This was done pursuant to federal law expressly created for that purpose after uears of discussion.  

So were the Jim Crow laws, the war on drugs, and Vietnam occupation. The color of law isn't always moral or just. In this case the scope of BENW was reduced pursuant to federal law or at least that is what it claims. We'll see how it goes in court as soon as the AF files suit or joins one of the others. 

BENW has only been a NM for a solitary year. Those mineral leases are decades old. If mining companies were going to operations they could have easily done it years ago. Same for OnG too it there were any.

Marc801 C wrote:

You have yet to answer this question:

Ha... you noticed... reality is you can't in an sort of reasonable, logical, way from his position.

Ray Pinpillage wrote:

If mining companies were going to operations they could have easily done it years ago. Same for OnG too it there were any.

Then why are they paying lobbyists and paying politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove protections?

Dude Morgan some people can be not for the monument and not for extractive industries. Projecting Identity politics onto others is awful on this thread. 

bus driver wrote:

Dude Morgan some people can be not for the monument and not for extractive industries. Projecting Identity politics onto others is awful on this thread. 

Ya I get that.. but that's a narrow simplification and misses a lot of non-factual things Ray has stated. I've been trying to understand his perspective in questioning his positions but from what I can tell it's certainly not identify politics but just a position with laundry list of logical inconsistencies I'm trying to understand. Sorry I grew up doing debate and have propensity to engage, even if it is stupid.

Interesting listening to Armando Menocal, co founder of Access Fund. He was interviewed on podcast Enormocast.

He shined a lot of light on the past crazy land managers and other people including some climbers that wanted to ban all climbing, or all fixed anchors-including bolts, chains, slings, fixed pins etc.

Some just wanted to ban rap or power drill bolting.  

That includes some American Alpine Clubbers.

He mentioned the Newspeak perversion of the English word "ethic" which was misinterpreted as climbing style.

That morphing of the word was used to cast moral judgements on people that climbed or bolted in a different style then the judger.