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Dear Jim Along with our "Backbone"contribution this year you’re going to get some feedback. I almost wrote after the "Mirror" issue, but there was enough input from that one that rendered moot anything I might have added. With this follow-up, however, I am compelled to send my thoughts. These are not completely fleshed out (you may have to give me a couple of years for that), but they represent my immediate reaction to your editorial. Moab isn't the only western town that has been overrun by motels and Wendys. Towns like Prescott Valley, Payson, and even Flagstaff (among many others) in Arizona are going through very similar development cycles for a reason that you state but then discard: people with disposable income and access to historically-low interest rates have a vague understanding that something is wrong with the frantic pace of their life, and want a quieter, nicer place to get away to. Because they come to these places as outsiders, and see only what "isn’’t" there in amenities, etc., they tend to be a force for change that is seen as negative by the people who already called these places home. Possibly without realizing it, they are destroying that aspect of those communities that drew them in the first place. I would disagree with the assertion that this reflects the environmentalists’’ strategy of "amenities economy" backfiring; it is simply a larger socioeconomic phenomenon that has swamped any ""amenities"" effect. Not all towns that suffer from development pressures are next to national parks or monuments. Their demise has nothing to do with environmentalists and organizations like SUWA, and everything to do with the real-estate boom and refinancing bonanza that has occurred over the past number of years. Speaking of SUWA, focusing on a couple of extreme-adventure providers in Moab that are abusing their access privileges at Arches seems to be really nitpicking at the environmentalists. SUWA and other organizations publicly oppose many policies of the BLM, USFS, and NPS. The key battlegrounds right now in my opinion are ORV use, wilderness designation, and WSA protection. To say that they are abandoning their principles by not attacking "Desert Highlights" and Matt Moore seems very small to me. Should SUWA be opposed? Yes. Do I wish they were publicly involved? Yes. Would their input have any effect on the NPS policy decision? Probably not. Do I think their lack of involvement is due to Matt Moore donating some money to SUWA and ostensibly supporting them? No, I don't believe that. Count me among those who can’t understand how the Park Service can be so detached and disinterested, but not among those who blame SUWA for that failure. Criticizing SUWA and other organizations for abandoning their higher principles and selling out for money is to me just wrong. I will say that there is some legitimacy to the argument that SUWA specifically may have lost its way somewhat during the Larry Young years. (I am not sure how to say that without directly criticizing Larry.) However, to quote the SUWA assets (as though a $3 million endowment is really a lot of money), and then compare them to the Blue Ribbon Coalition is absurd. The Blue Ribbon Coalition has the tacit if not explicit support of the current legislative and executive branches of government at the state and federal level, and of current appointees in the land management agencies. It doesn't take a lot of money to pick up the phone and call your congressman to get him to intervene with your regional agency representative. This happened recently with the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program in eastern Arizona/western New Mexico and the interagency program management panel. Listen, I miss the good old days of pure grassroots activism defeating Jim Hansen more than anyone, but the game has changed drastically in ten years. Policies are being rolled back at the administrative level, not the legislative level, and the ONLY way to fight that is with lawyers and lawsuits and the associated costs. Jim, this is the real world, muchacho (sorry). A great irony is that without SUWA, the 1995 Hansen bill would have passed, along with numerous others, and there would be nothing left to protect in Utah. Hard-release would have carried the day. I believe I am accurate in attributing defeat of that bill largely to the concerted efforts of SUWA and its members. Attacking the Sierra Club for selling out on Cloudrock is like attacking Bush/Cheney for selling out on drilling. It's what they do. I love the Sierra Club local organizations for their involvement and actions on the ground, but high-level Sierra Club policy has essentially meant selling out for money and influence forever. I don’’t think that the Sierra Club is representative of the organizations that many environmentalists look to primarily for action on things that are important to us. Regarding the fate of rural Western ranching communities in general, I basically agree with your position. This is an extremely complex situation that is going to force environmentalists to recognize that ranching is a viable, community-sustaining use in many rural areas. Smart use of conservation easements and grazing buyouts may help some ranchers ease out of the industry at a lesser cost to the environment than just selling out. I believe that most environmentalists, not the thrill-seeking, adventure-jockey dilettantes but those who are working hard to shape a more habitable world for all species, recognize the importance of sustainable community in relation to the surrounding environment. Finally, you place the fate of the American West at the feet of the environmental community, and charge them with saving what is left in a morally pure, idealistic way that is free from charges of hypocrisy. That is a pretty tall order. It sounds like the makings of martyrdom to me. I think the environmental community should lead the fights for wilderness, for saving open spaces, for protecting endangered species and wildlife habitat, and for clean air and water. It will take the help of a greater cross-section of the American public to say ""enough"" to sprawl, overpopulation, and needless consumption for the larger battle to be won, however. Joe Durnell Editor’s Note: I was never trying to bash any of Utah’s enviro groups. If anything, I just wish they’d open up some, step out of their bunker into the light of day in the 21st Century American West and be willing to have an honest exchange of ideas with people who don’t walk in lock-step with them. I appreciate the fact that you and I, for example, can disagree without getting angry. Is that so much to ask or expect?...JS DISMISSES STEEN URANIUM CLAIMS Dear Jim A new uranium rush is on in the intermountain west. More than 8,500 mining claims have been filed for uranium in 2005, so far, and several uranium mines are re-opening in Colorado and Utah. Breathless articles about this new uranium frenzy say that nuclear reactors worldwide need 180 million pounds of uranium per year and only 100 million is being mined. In fact, most of that difference was supplied from reprocessing nuclear wastes, used fuel rods, and atomic bombs, not from reserves. In 2004, the world production of new uranium yellowcake from mining and milling ore was 36,263 metric tons ("tonnes"). 66,658 tonnes were provided to operators of nuclear reactors in the same year. The difference was made up by nuclear fuel obtained from down-blending 90% enriched weapons-grade"high enriched uranium" and from processing of "Uranium enrichment tailings" and used reactor fuel rods. In the United States alone, we have 686,500 tonnes of Uranium Enrichment Tailings stored in containers outside nuclear fuel processing facilities. These tailings are what is left after yellowcake is turned into uranium hexafluoride gas and a portion of the uranium is concentrated by gaseous diffusion technology into fuel pellets for fuel rods. The Department of Energy is currently building two reprocessing plants to convert the uranium in these tailings into nuclear fuel using centrifuge enrichment technology. 100 tons of Uranium Enrichment Tailings produces as much nuclear fuel as 62 tons of uranium ore when processed. The amount of Uranium Enrichment Tailings on hand in the U.S. alone would supply the world's uranium needs for thirteen years at current use levels. World stockpiles of weapons-grade high-enriched uranium were 1900 tonnes in 2003. On ton of HEU yields the same amount of nuclear reactor fuel as 360 tons of uranium yellowcake. Finally, we have over 90% of the original uranium remaining in used nuclear reactor fuel rods. France reprocesses their fuel rods to recover the unspent uranium and convert it back to the correct concentration in new fuel rods. Particularly with the Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley storage debacles for "spent" fuel rods in the United States which are currently stored in water-filled pools on nuclear reactor campuses around the country, it appears to me that we should be reprocessing our used nuclear fuel. Since each pass through the reactor only depletes about 6-8% of the uranium in the fuel rod before its concentration becomes too low to sustain the controlled fission reaction in the engineered reactor environment, in theory we could turn one ton of nuclear fuel originally supplied from a uranium enrichment facility into 5.5 tons of usable uranium fuel equivalent (this allows for processing losses and inefficiencies in reprocessing of fuel rods). The downside to reprocessing fuel rods is one ends up with plutonium and some other nasty radioactive isotopes to dispose of, but the volume of these is far less than of the fuel rods themselves which is what our gummit has been planning to dispose of in Yucca Mountain. In the above three cases, we already have sustained the environmental costs of mining, milling, and concentrating the uranium ore to produce enriched uranium. What we now have is a nuclear waste or product which poses environmental hazards and potential costs of its own. An intelligent species might be expected to choose to process these wastes and products to remove usable uranium fuel from them, which is feasible (plants already exist which turn Uranium Enrichment Tailings, highly enriched uranium, and used nuclear fuel rods into new nuclear fuel rods) and competitive in cost per ton of fuel produced with mining new ore, milling it, then processing it into enriched uranium to produce new reactor fuel rods. Only when all the existing wastes that can yield uranium for fuel rods are processed and disposed of does it make environmental and economic sense to initiate mining and milling of uranium ores. In situ, the uranium ore is not an environmental hazard and poses no potential cost to the human economy. Let's deal with the uranium ore that has already been liberated into the environment and does pose an environmental hazard and potential cost to the human economy before adding to that radioactive hazard inventory and increasing that potential cost. - Lance Christie Moab, UT MORE DOUBTS ON THE URANIUM SHORTAGE Dear Jim: Thanks a lot for the recent (Aug/Sept 05) issue of The Zephyr. A great issue. I liked the uranium story; "Take it or leave it"; and ". . .alien country." About the alleged uranium "shortage," it puzzels me. In the late 1970s I did my masters thesis on the anti-nuclear power movement and the US government's activities in uranium technology. The political issue which remained at the end of my work was that of continued government (AEC/DOE) production of weapons grade material, i.e., plutonium and HEU (high enriched uranium). I declined to vote for Jimmy Carter second term because I was so mad at the hypocrisy of the US government accounting, as an example for the world to follow, that the US was abandoning spent fuel reprocessing. The abandonment was only in the commercial sector, while all the while production and reprocessing in government operations continued. As for HEU production, I believe that actually was stopping even then. The reason for stopping HEU production was the huge quantities of HEU that had been produced up to that time. A classified number I was never able to obtain was the exact quantity of this material the US had in its stockpile, but the impression was there was so much of it even DOE couldn't justify producing any more. Steen says, "During the last 2 decades the [commercial uranium] shortfall has been filled by converting around 40% of Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal to nuclear fuel and by the sale of privatized [US] government stockpiles." HEU, just in case it isn't clear, consists of 90+% of the rare isotope U235. Commercial fuel needs 3% U235. That means to produce commerical fueld you'd take a smidgeon of HEU and recombine it with depleted uranium, and we know there's lots of that around. To render a knowledgeable verdict here, you'd have to know the precise economic and technical feasibility of such a recombining process, and how much HEU is available. Nonetheless, based on the impression I gained back then about vast quantities of US stockpiled HEU, I was extremely shocked to learn of a uranium "shortage." What would not shock me would be to learn that the Bush Administration is holding back provding HEU in order to create a uranium "shortage." Anyway, Steen's article was highly interesting, as was your "Take it or leave it" column (I savored your phrase "one gloriously unscheduled day at a time"), and I was quite intrigued by Regehr's UFO article. That is a fascinating subject !! Kind regards, Elaine Douglass Moab, UT STEEN’S VESTED INTEREST? Dear Jim: Mark Steen's story hashed over some convincing numbers and argument regarding the Third Coming of Uranium, and I imagine readers appreciated the story. However, I didn't see any disclosures from you, with the story or elsewhere in the issue (did I miss something?), regarding the author's potential conflicts of interest. Mr. Steen's stature as a guest contributor and more particularly his family history should leave your readers asking if he has any ongoing business interests in the uranium industry, or even any significant indirect interests, such as involvement or holdings by family members or associates. Even if Mr. Steen asserts to you that he has no vested financial interests in the subject matter, you should disclose his assertion to readers. (Maybe someone will offer information to the contrary.) And the same applies if Mr. Steen simply declines to disclose to you his current relationship to the industry. This story demands a disclosure to readers; I'll watch for one in the October issue. Thanks, Brian K. Alvord, Salt Lake City EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Steen has hardly been secretive with regard to uranium interests he’s developing in San Juan County, but the information should have been disclosed and it was an oversight and/or poor judgement on my part. My apologies...JS THE KENTUCKY/LYNN CONNECTION STRIKES AGAIN Hello. This is a message to Jim Stiles and you can feel free to use my comments in the Zephyr if you choose to. My wife and I traveled to the Four Corners area in June and were completely "wowed" by the breathtaking landscapes in southern Utah. We completed our quest to travel to all 50 states last year when we visited gorgeous Alaska. In all of our travels, though, we had never visited southern Utah. What a great time we had! My normally "timid behind the wheel" wife even got into the off-road four-wheeling in Arches National Park and really enjoyed it. And what a pleasant surprise when I picked up my copy of the Zephyr. At first I was shocked to read the ad for Lynne's Paradise Café, but I quickly realized that an eccentric like Lynne is a perfect match for the Zephyr. I am an avid reader of the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO), Louisville's great left-wing newspaper. When I got back home I was telling a close friend that about a rag I picked up in Utah with an ad from Lynne. I described your publication as about 500 miles left of LEO. He got a big kick out of seeing it. Also, we really enjoyed reading about your exploits in the University of Louisville magazine. Keep up your quest to find the right mix of nature and development that will allow the Canyon Country to remain the special place that it is. Look for my subscription request in the next few days. Tom Recktenwald
BLUE BALLS ARE SOMETIMES WHITE Hello, I've just started reading the Zephyr and, as an old Utah buff, I am delighted by it. My payment for a subscription is on the way. Your article 'Take it or Leave It" reminds me of an experience I had not long ago. I drove into a local "Whole Foods Market" and parked behind a white Tundra. On leaving my vehicle, I noticed a large pair of white plastic testicles hanging behind the rear bumper of the Tundra! While I often think I've "seen it all", I was nevertheless rather shocked by the crude symbolism. My response was to give them a swift kick before entering the market. Keep up the agitation, Ron Parry Houston, Texas THIS GUY SHOULD HAVE SUBSCRIBED 10 YEARS AGO Hello Mr. Stiles: On a recent jaunt through Moab I was forced by thirst and a low gas gauge to stop at a convenience store, where I picked up your newspaper (among other necessities). Congratulations for having the courage to publish material that deviates from politically correct, mainstream duplicity! I enjoy your ability to write clearly about the sacred cow of western landscapes -- recreation. Our growing pattern of abuse-and-run deserves to be examined with a critical eye. So, too, does the national god of greed, which you nicely disclosed in your Greening of the Wilderne$$ article. But it saddens me that you, along with so many others, still shy away from the underlying cause of commercialization, greed, and the litany of environmental woes: too many people. Via satellite from Alkali Ridge, J.D. Philpemhoff Editor’s Note: THE ZEPHYR has been doing stories on population for more than a decade and frequently, we include the "population clock" from the Census Bureau, just as a reminder. And this issue focuses on population once more...JS ANIMAL CRUELTY IN MOAB Dear Editor, We found a kitten while visiting Moab last week. It was a tiny little thingnear death behind our motel in Moab. We took it to a vet in Moab for lice & flea treatment and shots. When we got home to Page, AZ, we found it had also been shot in the head with a bb gun. I had to take it to the vet here also. So sad to see people treating animals like that. We've adopted the kitten. We'd like to see the people doing this sort of thing in Moab prosecuted.It's horrible. Other than that, Moab is a way cool town. Take care. We love your paper. Julie Hayes Page, AZ
ANOTHER VIEW ON ENVIRO ORIGINS IN UTAH Hi, Jim, I noticed Grant Johnson’s letter (Zephyr, August/September ‘‘05) about the early personal history of SUWA and with great trepidation want to offer another version of that history or a tiny part of it. Grant’s sense that the Utah Wilderness Association (UWA) was foregoing the Boulder Top for the Uintas is not exactly correct. There is no doubt UWA and many others saw the Uintas as the flagship for the Utah Wilderness Act. It was a massive roadless landscape like no other area on Utah Forest Service lands, it was long recognized as ecologically unique and it had a huge base of support. All of those were very important concepts. I take no exception to Grant’s frustration and will always appreciate his help and willingness to try and smooth out the roughness that developed in those heady and early wilderness days in Utah. His brief description of how SUWA started is how I remember it. But it was wrong then and now to suggest UWA was leaving areas out of that wilderness bill. The difference was simply that UWA felt that a Forest Service wilderness bill (remember the time frame was 1983-’84) was worth the effort even given the inevitable compromises that would ensue (to think they wouldn’t have occurred then, now or in the someday-to-be-designated Red Rocks Wilderness Bill is utter foolishness). Grant’s colleagues argued otherwise. Unfortunately it always came with the accusation that UWA was leaving areas out of a bill for some other favorite areas. That was nonsense! What kept Boulder Top, Wayne Wonderland, 100 Lake Mt., Fishlake Hightop and a host of other areas out of the bill was the lack of local support to get an area into the legislation. And that created the different strategies, if you will. Grant’s colleagues argued not to proceed with the legislation; UWA argued it was better to proceed. That debate goes on, which is fine. But it never should have been framed as an organization trying to harm wilderness. The amazing thing to me after all these years was that we were able to generate that level of public support for wilderness then. The distressing thing today is that support for Utah wilderness 20 years ago was as broad and deep as it has ever been in Utah. Best, Dick Carter High Uintas Preservation Council Hyrum, UT ALIEN?...SCHMALIEN! Dear Zephyr, I was very disappointed with Ron Regehr's article "Is Grand County Alien Country?". This poorly written and unobjectional story doesn't quite measure up to the Zephyr's usual standard. I'm not sure just how Mr. Regehr came to his conclusions, claiming these "genuine events . . . withstood close scrutiny and investigation". What scrutiny? What investigation? By whom? These events clearly lack common sense and show a narrow minded approach from the writer. With a minimal amount of information, people can quickly jump to some pretty bizarre conclusions. A very dear friend of mine and myself were observing the moonrise a few months ago, when suddenly my friend became quite excited at the site of a bright light just above the Moab Rim. Exclaiming that the light was "coming right at us" I calmly provided him with the rest of the story. Venus was rising and was the closest it had been to Earth in quite some time. It was only a planet. So before thinking "aha, aliens!", it seems to me these events offer other more reasonable conclusions. The lights over the La Sals in 1917 could've indeed been airplanes with high powered search lights. Who says they need an airbase to take off from? Aircraft during this time commonly used flat open-space makeshift airfields. The "mysterious disappearing USAF officer" sounds more like an AWOL incident, coupled with some sort of emotional distress, or possibly a drug induced hallucination. If he was involved in some covert action for our military, it makes perfect sense why the air force would quickly cover up the incident. The Cataract Canyon "sighting" could have been almost anything, particularly when you consider the small size of the "UFO". This incident was, first of all, heresay, and could have been produced out of a number things like headlights, smoke from a camp fire, or possibly even an acid trip. As for "Dr. R" and others like him, it's a shame these people fail to realize how powerful our dream-state can be. How many of us have had dreams where we feel we're "really there". Coupled with the sci-fi garbage that has permeated our media for more than 50 years (alien abduction reports cease to exist prior to this time), there certainly seems to be a logical explanation. So all in all I really didn't learn anything new, but certainly got a good chuckle. Perhaps Mr. Regehr should direct his future articles towards The National Enquirer. T. C. Hurt Moab Editor’s Note: Actually the Air Force officer story WAS extremely well-documented and confirmed by doctors and nurses at Allen Memorial Hospital, in a separate Zephyr story by Peter Haney several years ago. More importantly, TC...lighten up....JS LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE Dear Jim, I’ve been following with interest the gist of your efforts to help us all better understand more clearly the phenomenon that is sweeping the West. And I’ve appreciated the observations and criticisms of those who’ve felt compelled to respond. But I would like to offer to you and everyone the idea that what has been identified as a craze, driven by commercial exploitation of the land, is about a symptom of a far greater threat, the threat of an entire culture destroying itself in the vain attempt to satiate the physical. The presumption that happiness is out there somewhere in the doing or the seeing. When this vain-glorious generation of thrill seekers has passed from the stage of human drama, when our children’s children lay claim to those sacred places we now call ours, no doubt these keen reasoning far-thinking people will have evolved the spiritual insight to more correctly discern that happiness is a product of the inner life. And those lonely and desolate and beautiful places will be recognized for their worth as places for soul rejuvenation and worshipful contemplation. And maybe–just maybe—humankind will have invented institutions wholly and solely for the purpose of self-gratification. And that sir, will put an end to this need we all feel, the need to consume to enjoy. In admiration, Dave Wagstaff Castle Valley, Utah AND FINALLY...LOOKING AT THE VERY SMALL PICTURE Hmmmm..... this is kinda interesting..... How many changes, errors and omissions can you find between the two articles below? Come on Jim..... let's see a little testicular fortitude!!! Print it like I wrote it..... No Guts, No Glory Go big or go home..... Whats the matter.... afraid..... hahaha.... chickenshit..... Shane EDITOR’S NOTE: Shane was previously mentioned in this publication as the man who sells the location of secret places for $15 (now $25). He objected to the fact that I removed his web site from a previous letter to Feedback. This one was printed verbatim...JS | |||||
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