Post your images of the 27 threatened National Monuments here

This is the last that I'm either going to look at or reply to this thread. I live in GA and you live in CA or SF to be exact---- the most taxed and regulated state in the US (unless NY or MA is ahead of you). Do you realize how many businesses are leaving CA--- save Silicone Valley? Elon Musk moved his battery-making company to Nevada within a couple of miles from CA. CA is going to self-implode unless it changes---- and I doubt that it will. Others have moved to AZ, TX or other states. I just don't see how many can think that the government can or should regulate our lives. The controversy about the NP's and NM's has been going on for years.

If it's true that UT is 2/3 NP's or NM's what else do you want?

I'll be the first to admit that the Native Americans have been screwed since early America but I think we need to look at the big picture of the US population rather than a very small percentage of the total US population. Except for MLK Center in ATL and a memorial at Washington DC and streets named after MLK, what do the blacks have for a "sacred shrine"? Ditto Irish, Italian, German and other Americans.

I realize that this thread is about "saving" our NP's and NM's but I think there should be a balance of the land and its' uses. Look how crowded the eastern US is. How many complaints do you get on this forum? Try the western US from the western border of Texas to CA. About as sparse as you can get save Denver and Phoenix and LV.

I'm just an old Reaganite who believes in less government and more freedom. I'm 75 and think Reagan will go down as the best president of my generation and he's from California.

Enough!!!!!! This is not a political forum. These two opposing sides will never meet in the middle and agree.

Kent

SkipRD said:

It sounds like you have some excellent arguments. Perhaps you should make them to Congress.

Skip

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I certainly have submitted comments to Zinke.

KENTGA said:

Touche, Skip.

Kent

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Touche, as in I (Kentga) know this is a do nothing conger when it comes to anything other than wholesale development?

KENTGA said:

T

I'll be the first to admit that the Native Americans have been screwed since early America

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Got that part right.

KENTGA said:

Except for MLK Center in ATL and a memorial at Washington DC and streets named after MLK, what do the blacks have for a "sacred shrine"? Ditto Irish, Italian, German and other Americans.

Click to expand...

Do you know what a shrine is and what the difference between your gobbledygook and 800 to 13,000 Year old cultural heritage that this country should wholeheartedly embrace?

KENTGA said:

Enough!!!!!! This is not a political forum.

Kent

Click to expand...

And I started the thread with images and dialog, hoping that others would follow suit. Anybody?

FWIW, in 1972 and beyond we built houses that were sold to blacks mostly in South Atlanta and any other areas where we were building that where they wanted to buy. Never discriminated (we're white) and didn't as long as we were building. Ditto Asians, Africans and any other race and this was in the mid 70's and 80's before intergration really got kicked in in Atlanta. Moved to Charleston and Columbia and did the same.

Back in the early 60's in Atlanta we frequently when to Black night clubs and whites were always a minority and sometimes 4 or 6 or us white's would be the only whites in the black night clubs. Ditto when I was at the U of Alabama when James Brown came to Spelman College in about 1963. About 8 or 10 of us whites went to the concert with no problem. This was in the middle of integration in the south and we didn't have any problem. Atlanta was much open and different during this time. We're talking about going to Herndon Stadium--- a football stadium at Morehouse or Clark College and numerous black venues such as VFW clubs and a venues large enough to hold Joe Tex or Wilson Pickett and also the Royal Peacock Social Club on Auburn Avenue in ATL.

Just wanted to say this because I'm not biased. I just think the Native Americans should maybe pare down some if this is what it's all about.

Sacred places??? How about the Jewish Synagogue which is most holy to them being buried under a Mosque in Jerusalem. Go figure.

Signing out,

Kent

this location is in the Grand Canyon-Parashant monument area, not too far off of the road going to tuweep... it appears to be volcanic cinder, not dirt.

as you can see in the photo, i have a serious rock crawling rig, so when offroad access gets blocked by government, it defeats the reason why i built the truck... there are several offroad lobby groups, that are locked in constant battle against the big environment lobby, as typified by the sierra club and such.

on the other hand, if these monuments get turned over to the states, they'll be sold to big business, which will block access even worse than the government has... if you look at texas for example, there is very little public land, it's almost all privately owned... it's pretty obvious that republicans are bought and paid for by big business, but some of the travesties that occurred in texas over the years were done by democrats.



here is the reason why trump is doing these "reviews":

"In the first two months of 2015, a flurry of bills in state legislatures across the West has added to the small-government push to turn vast stretches of public land over to individual states.

The movement, which is cast as one of self-governance and economic development, faces more problems than the federal government’s intransigence.

The Utah legislator leading the push has come under fire for profiting off of it. Plus, polling shows that most people don’t want the federal government to turn over its land to the states, and most states can’t afford the new job. The only way the transfer makes sense financially is if the states substantially increase the amount of mining and drilling on these public lands.

There’s reason to believe that will happen. The Utah office in charge of public land policy openly advocates for it.

Known as the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, it says federal rules keep revenue from flowing to the state government and residents. If the state took control of the land, it would “increase Utah’s ability to access and responsibly develop its energy resources.”

In Utah’s bill, legislators said the federal government could keep all of its national parks and monuments except the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The monument sits atop a trove of oil and coal deposits valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.

This year, I’ve been closely following mining and resource extraction on public land. Here’s a rundown of what’s at play, and some of the more interesting side stories, as the Western states go for the land grab."

https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-problems-with-the-state-movement-to-take-federal-land/

--
dan

osv said:

this location is in the Grand Canyon-Parashant monument area, not too far off of the road going to tuweep... it appears to be volcanic cinder, not dirt.

as you can see in the photo, i have a serious rock crawling rig, so when offroad access gets blocked by government, it defeats the reason why i built the truck... there are several offroad lobby groups, that are locked in constant battle against the big environment lobby, as typified by the sierra club and such.

on the other hand, if these monuments get turned over to the states, they'll be sold to big business, which will block access even worse than the government has... if you look at texas for example, there is very little public land, it's almost all privately owned... it's pretty obvious that republicans are bought and paid for by big business, but some of the travesties that occurred in texas over the years were done by democrats.



here is the reason why trump is doing these "reviews":

"In the first two months of 2015, a flurry of bills in state legislatures across the West has added to the small-government push to turn vast stretches of public land over to individual states.

The movement, which is cast as one of self-governance and economic development, faces more problems than the federal government’s intransigence.

The Utah legislator leading the push has come under fire for profiting off of it. Plus, polling shows that most people don’t want the federal government to turn over its land to the states, and most states can’t afford the new job. The only way the transfer makes sense financially is if the states substantially increase the amount of mining and drilling on these public lands.

There’s reason to believe that will happen. The Utah office in charge of public land policy openly advocates for it.

Known as the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, it says federal rules keep revenue from flowing to the state government and residents. If the state took control of the land, it would “increase Utah’s ability to access and responsibly develop its energy resources.”

In Utah’s bill, legislators said the federal government could keep all of its national parks and monuments except the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The monument sits atop a trove of oil and coal deposits valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.

This year, I’ve been closely following mining and resource extraction on public land. Here’s a rundown of what’s at play, and some of the more interesting side stories, as the Western states go for the land grab."

https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-problems-with-the-state-movement-to-take-federal-land/

--
dan

Click to expand...

Interesting, in general it really runs into short sighted profit. Especially in regard to Grand Staircase are two questions.

How do they want to get the oil and coal out of that region? The nearest rail track would be close to Page in Arizona but that is on the wrong side of Lake Powell?! If not via rail the next fight will come to build a pipeline for oil but coal can't go that way so there will be trouble upcoming.

Isn't the coal especially in the area around Smokey Mountain Road on fire, hence the name?!

Im afraid politicians will do their thing again without respecting the publics will, too bad....

--
When in doubt, C4
KJ6EPH

KENTGA said:

FWIW, in 1972 and beyond we built houses that were sold to blacks mostly in South Atlanta and any other areas where we were building that where they wanted to buy. Never discriminated (we're white) and didn't as long as we were building. Ditto Asians, Africans and any other race and this was in the mid 70's and 80's before intergration really got kicked in in Atlanta. Moved to Charleston and Columbia and did the same.

Back in the early 60's in Atlanta we frequently when to Black night clubs and whites were always a minority and sometimes 4 or 6 or us white's would be the only whites in the black night clubs. Ditto when I was at the U of Alabama when James Brown came to Spelman College in about 1963. About 8 or 10 of us whites went to the concert with no problem. This was in the middle of integration in the south and we didn't have any problem. Atlanta was much open and different during this time. We're talking about going to Herndon Stadium--- a football stadium at Morehouse or Clark College and numerous black venues such as VFW clubs and a venues large enough to hold Joe Tex or Wilson Pickett and also the Royal Peacock Social Club on Auburn Avenue in ATL.

Just wanted to say this because I'm not biased. I just think the Native Americans should maybe pare down some if this is what it's all about.

Click to expand...

It sounded that way, so good on you. I don't think you or I know what culture means to native Americans - we really don't have culture, per se, in our society. But Bears Ears and Canyon of the Ancients (I've clearly been to both - visit Crow Canyon!) are about more than culture - the society and remnants of it that exist today are every bit as significant and important to preserve to the greatest extent possible as ruins of Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian, or Asian ancient cultures

KENTGA said:

Sacred places??? How about the Jewish Synagogue which is most holy to them being buried under a Mosque in Jerusalem. Go figure.

Signing out,

Kent

Click to expand...

darg said:

osv said:

this location is in the Grand Canyon-Parashant monument area, not too far off of the road going to tuweep... it appears to be volcanic cinder, not dirt.

as you can see in the photo, i have a serious rock crawling rig, so when offroad access gets blocked by government, it defeats the reason why i built the truck... there are several offroad lobby groups, that are locked in constant battle against the big environment lobby, as typified by the sierra club and such.

on the other hand, if these monuments get turned over to the states, they'll be sold to big business, which will block access even worse than the government has... if you look at texas for example, there is very little public land, it's almost all privately owned... it's pretty obvious that republicans are bought and paid for by big business, but some of the travesties that occurred in texas over the years were done by democrats.



here is the reason why trump is doing these "reviews":

"In the first two months of 2015, a flurry of bills in state legislatures across the West has added to the small-government push to turn vast stretches of public land over to individual states.

The movement, which is cast as one of self-governance and economic development, faces more problems than the federal government’s intransigence.

The Utah legislator leading the push has come under fire for profiting off of it. Plus, polling shows that most people don’t want the federal government to turn over its land to the states, and most states can’t afford the new job. The only way the transfer makes sense financially is if the states substantially increase the amount of mining and drilling on these public lands.

There’s reason to believe that will happen. The Utah office in charge of public land policy openly advocates for it.

Known as the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, it says federal rules keep revenue from flowing to the state government and residents. If the state took control of the land, it would “increase Utah’s ability to access and responsibly develop its energy resources.”

In Utah’s bill, legislators said the federal government could keep all of its national parks and monuments except the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The monument sits atop a trove of oil and coal deposits valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.

This year, I’ve been closely following mining and resource extraction on public land. Here’s a rundown of what’s at play, and some of the more interesting side stories, as the Western states go for the land grab."

https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-problems-with-the-state-movement-to-take-federal-land/

--
dan

Click to expand...

Interesting, in general it really runs into short sighted profit. Especially in regard to Grand Staircase are two questions.

How do they want to get the oil and coal out of that region? The nearest rail track would be close to Page in Arizona but that is on the wrong side of Lake Powell?! If not via rail the next fight will come to build a pipeline for oil but coal can't go that way so there will be trouble upcoming.

Isn't the coal especially in the area around Smokey Mountain Road on fire, hence the name?!

Click to expand...

As far as I know the coal is mostly on the Kaiparowitts Plateau between Escalante and Lake Powell. Although that area isn't significant for tourists except on the south end, it is heavily used by grazer's and hunters primarily. As a mostly Juniper (maybe Pinion also - don't remember) forest it is home to many creatures. The views from the south end of the plateau are outstanding towards Rainbow Mountain. My images are old film images.

In the Circle Cliffs east of the Escalante there are considerable Uranium deposits especially nearer the road that goes south from Boulder. But one would have to ask, just how much Uranium do we need. As far as I know all of the claims in that area have not been mined since the 50's - nor is there evidence that any of the mine explorations were actively mined commercially - there is no mine refuse.


The rock surrounding the Escalante is Navaho sandstone. East there is mostly Windgate sandstone (The Circle Cliffs in the far distance have reddish colors. Beyond the Windgate Circle Cliffs and underlying it is the Morrison formation which bears Uranium.


It is naive to believe, regardless of the spectacular value of Grand-Staircase Escalante that in the long run Utah will be best served by valuing extractive industries over tourism. When I vista towns now they are much different than many years ago. The number of European tourists is amazing. Local ranchers still pursue cattle grazing.

darg said:

Im afraid politicians will do their thing again without respecting the publics will, too bad....

--
When in doubt, C4
KJ6EPH

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El Río Bravo del Norte; low tide in November. This section is usually packed with fast-water enthusiasts just about now.

Downriver

Not that anyone on this thread has, but, please, don't say "Río Grande River."

Cochiti Pueblo, southwest of Santa Fé, is roughly the dividing point between the Río Abajo, and the Río Arriba. A community, just south of here, home to Capitan Sebastián Martín Serrano, and, Alcalde Mayor of Santa Cruz de La Cañada de Los Españoles Mejicanos, in the early 1700's, became Río Arriba, a county seat for Río Arriba, New Mexico. Today, that former county seat, is known as Alcalde.

Good news for Hanford Reach thanks to comments generated by enthusiasts and the scientific community.

Also, please post pictures of fishermen and their families harmed from having their fishing grounds taken away from the new national marine monuments.

--
“In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.” – Ansel Adams

L Copps said:

Also, please post pictures of fishermen and their families harmed from having their fishing grounds taken away from the new national marine monuments.

Click to expand...

Short term or long term?

2.7 million comments from this one group alone.

Gary from Seattle said:

2.7 million comments from this one group alone.

Click to expand...

Great work, Gary!

- Richard

Even though the national public comment period has ended, you may still have input at the local level should the monument designation for your area be removed.

This will be true for the Giant Sequoia National Monument in California, where county officials the National Forest Service could decide how changes in use of the land will be implemented. There may be public hearings. The biggest change would be permitting logging within the Monument areas. Opposing sides have staked out their opinions. From a Sierra Club article, June 27 2017:

• Asked for its stance on Giant Sequoia National Monument, the California Forestry Association, a timber industry group, said: "We fully support the protection of the giant Sequoia trees and know that the best way to protect them is to manage the surrounding forestlands by reducing the fuel loads and thinning the surrounding forest to help protect the giant sequoias from catastrophic wildfire."

• In response, [Chad] Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist, points out that giant sequoias actually require fire for their seeds to effectively germinate and grow into saplings, and he notes that hundreds of scientific studies now conclude that post-fire habitat is some of the very best and most biodiverse wildlife habitat. "When the logging industry says 'thinning', they are really talking about intensive commercial logging projects that would destroy the giant sequoia forest ecosystems and associated forests in the monument," Hanson says.

1. There are two Giant Sequoia National Monuments in California - one west of Kings Canyon National Park in the north, the other one in the Sequoia National Forest in the south (shaded dark gray on the map).


1a. I will be following what happens in the National Monument in the south, near where I live. On the map, the boundaries of the Monument are delineated in red. The light green areas with green dots represent the Sequoia Groves throughout the Monument.


2. I photographed these Sequoias in the Trail of 100 Giants Grove, just northwest of Johnsondale, in the lower third area on the map above. Zoom in on the original size to view the details up close.




3. To appreciate the trees' immense size, you need people in the photograph to give a sense of perspective.




4.




5. Several years ago, two trees fell. The Forest Service decided to leave them as is and build a walkway around them so people can see the hugeness of these trees.




6. Penstemons growing around the trunk of a Sequoia. (Penstemon rostriflrus)




7. Coville's Groundsmoke (Gayophytum eriospermum)






7a. Same as above. A very tiny flower.




8. Meadows are allowed to grow undisturbed. Here, a nice colony of Cow Cabbage, aka Corn Lily (Veratrum californicum).




8a. Veratrum flowers




9. Another nice meadow, with Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium).




9a. Bee on Yarrow flowers.




10. Sulphur Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum). I photographed this and the following flowers in the natural habitats surrounding the Sequoia Groves. All undisturbed, as here in a small ravine.




11. Small clearing of Bigelow's Sneezeweed (Helenium bigelovii).




11a. Bee fly on Sneezeweed.




12. Skunky monkeyflower (Mimulus nanus var. mephiticus). Both magenta and yellow flowers grow together in this variety.




12a. Magenta Skunky Monkey Flower




13. Gray's Cinquefoil (Potentilla grayii). Endemic to the Sierra Nevada. Very few seen in the Monument.




14. Coyote Tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata). Native to California, and of interest in this area because the Tubatulabal people, who lived here thousands of years before the white man arrived, used this tobacco.




15. Woolly Mullein (Verbascum thapsus). Not native.




16. Harlequin Lupine (Lupinus stiversii). Endemic to California, seen along roadsides through out the forests.




17. Giant Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata). Areas near creeks and streams are home to many plants, including this species of Paintbrush.




17a. Giant Paintbrush flower.




18. Scarlet Columbine (Aquilegia formosa). Another plant found in wet areas.




18a. Scarlet Columbine likes to hang down.




19. Golden Brodiaea (Trietleia ixioides ssp. scabra. This subspecies has cream colored anthers.




20. Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). Lakes in the area are small wildlife habitats.




21. American Coot chick, (Fulica americana).




22. Ruddy Duck, one of the stiff-tailed ducks.

Text and photographs for this post are adapted from a more expansive project on the Southern Sierra Nevada on my web site, which includes more wildflower and wildlife photographs:

Giant Sequoia National Monument

regards,

- Richard

--

Richard, looks like you had a fine trip. A variety of very interesting photos to illustrate the trip's highlights.

We've never been to that section of the Sierra and now I want to go there.

Old Listener said:

Richard, looks like you had a fine trip. A variety of very interesting photos to illustrate the trip's highlights.

We've never been to that section of the Sierra and now I want to go there.

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I'm sure you would enjoy the visit, Bill!

- Richard