On November 12, KUED, the public television station in Salt Lake City, premiered a one hour documentary titled “The Battle Over Bears Ears.” In 2017, producer Nancy Green and her crew came to San Juan County and spent weeks there,…
More than three years have passed since the idea of a “Bears Ears National Monument” was first introduced to the general public. One of the most far-reaching and expensive coast-to-coast marketing campaigns ever promoted by the powerful outdoor industry and…
I have recently learned to remotely keep track of traffic flows at Arches National Park and the Moab area via web cameras at the park entrance and along US 191 as the tourists flow in and out. I’m a Luddite…
Tonya and I were headed home from Dodge, sticking to the back roads and enjoying the warmth of a Spring afternoon. The windows were down, the temperature was perfect and the breeze still comfortable when I suddenly braked the car…
I have been publishing The Zephyr for 29 years; this isn’t one of those landmark anniversaries, like the fast-approaching Big 30, but everything seems so volatile lately, so uncertain, and more than anything—so nasty–that I thought maybe I’d do a…
In December, The Zephyr first reported on a leaked email of a draft memo from a Friends of Cedar Mesa board member. Here is an update…JS A SHORT HISTORY OF THE LEAKED MEMO The Friends of Cedar Mesa (FCM), a…
First, in the spirit of the season, let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the way liberals and conservatives view public lands in the western United States… Liberals tend to prefer greater restrictions and regulations…
As a counter to the monument designation, and in fact as a long standing response to what local and state governments consider federal overreach, there are some in Utah state and local governments like San Juan County who have advocated…
This publication has maintained for over a year that all federal lands are protected by the Archaeological Resources Protection of Act of 1979 and that, in fact, ARPA was passed by Congress to address shortcomings and inadequacies in the 1906…
A few weeks ago, I submitted a shorter version of an article we posted in The Zephyr called “The New West’s Big Lie” to the environmental newspaper, High Country News. Though “The Big Lie” was in direct response to a…