Balance is the key - yes we can protect the environment and drill for oil. Extremists aside - ideally clear minds will prevail and a well-thought out, safe, respectful approach to building and operating an "oil rig" to extract a natural resource while protecting the surrounding areas is beneficial to our environment, our state, and our economy. Balance between the "extremes" is important and we can work together to do what is best for the Salt Lake are surrounding areas! Balance....

Very well thought out comment, Anonymous. I agree totally!!!

Sorry, you can't work with extreminsts, it's their way of the highway. That is why we are in this mess today.

I'm an art lover but folks going ga ga over the Spiral Jetty completely devalues good art. This thing is an eyesore. We need to take up collections to "restore" the lakeshore by getting rid of the rubble pile. Why do out of state rich eccentrics think that Utah's open places are their personal art canvas? ANd how did Smithson get the rights to do what he did anyway and how did it become his property to bequeath to anyone else since Great Salt Lake is owned by the State of Utah??? With $4 a gallon gasoline, I say, drill the h*ll out of the Lake! We'll all go belly up worring about global warming and the ringtailed rufus or the lovely brine-shrimp!

The Jetty to me is nothing less than graffiti under the guise of "art". Give me a break. I am so tired of the "not in my backyard" mentality. Understand this people...if we don't do something about our energy supplies, not only will we be dependent on foreign oil, we will also be dependent on foreign natural gas. All this bogus climate change alarmism is driving us to use our natural gas reserves to generate electricity when the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of cheap coal. This is stupid. We also need to build some more nuclear power plants. Drill for the oil please, and while you're at it, could you clean up all the rocks someone dumped in the lake and called it "art"?

It seems that as soon as any environmentalist groups stick their nose into anything, no matter how far, they're labeled extremist. What's so extremist about protecting our environment?

I agree fully with Anonymous - that balance is the key. But if there is to be balance, there has to be compromise - and I'm hard-pressed to find many examples of compromise on the part of oil and gas producers.

Environmentalists drew much ire after the Legacy Highway lawsuit, but remember that a non-partisan judge ruled in their favor. The Army Corps had not completed a proper environmental impact statement, period, and as such the proposal was halted until we knew the full extent of the impact. What's so extremist about that?

So the argument usually goes like this: x wants to drill for gas/build in sensitive areas. Y environmentalists speak out about the potential negative impacts, and bam! they're labeled "extremist" before anyone even understands what's going on.

Balance is indeed the key - so let's try to instill some on both sides. Protecting the health and natural beauty of our planet isn't extremist...

It is to bad when a few people hold everybody else hostage on things like this. We all know it would be in the best interest of our state and country to develop our own resources. I am very confident we can do it in an environmently friendly mannor.

When are we going to stop letting the few run this country?? It seem like the majority are hard working and trying to make a living, they just don't have time to get out and voice their opinion and fight for these things. We are trying to provide for our families and pay taxes. It is the few with time on there hands to protest, file lawsuits to stop projects and cost the tax payers huge amounts of money. We need to get more involved and quit messing around with these folks that have nothing better to do. It is also such a shame that usually the problems stem from people who are out of state. Wow, what a waste of our time and money. They need to stay home and fix some of their own problems.

This is rediculous. Just move the darn thing.

Let's drill already !!
Do it !!!

To Art Lover: "Ensign" paintings don't count as art. Spiral Jetty is a magnificent sculpture created in a manner to make us think about our environment and lives. The argument "let's drill" doesn't hold up. If there was oil in downtown SLC would we drill there? It's this mentality that has ruined the skyline at the point of the mountain, despoiling the beautiful mountains with ugly mcmansions.

Speaking of Point of the Mountain. I don't think the huge windmill there do anything to enhance the natural environment.

But back to the original issue. I have been to the Jetty in reminded me of the "art" my children produced at the beach only in a larger scale. I sould have preserved it so I could donate it to the Smithsonian for a mega-buck tax deduction.

The oil was there before the jetty, the jetty can be there after the oil's been removed. Don't give in to the enviro-nazis. We did on the Legacy highway and I'm afraid everytime we want to build a new highway we will be subjected to their blackmail. They are not elected by the people, they should not be able to demand a seat at the table when new highways are constructed.

Utah artist:

"Ensign paintings don't count as art." Huh? But apparently an underwater rock pile does. Hmmmm!

Sounds like Taliban orthodoxy to me. A gaggle of snobs gets together over wine and cheese and decides for all of us what is and isn't acceptable as art. Your next step will surely be to enforce your rigid views on the rest of us. Maybe you could call it the Bamiyan project.

I guess that's how "art" came to be irrelevant in our world.

BTW, give the McMansions a couple years. They'll become art, too, and some future Taliban will declare them protected and place them on the National Register of Historic Places.

Definitions:
Environmental rapist -- someone who wants to cut down trees to build a mansion on a pristine mountainside with a 5-car garage and paved road leading up to it.
Environmentalist -- someone who did the same thing 5 years ago.

This is art?

Apparently the definition in Utah bears changing. It looks like a rock jetty that was installed wrong. If this is the excuse, just what was the reason? They seem to be totally unrelated.

Yeah, leave the oil there, you'd just put it in your cars and cruise State street.

If this doesn't prove how assbackwards this state is NOTHING WILL!!! I strongly encourage those of you that believe that if the Jetty isn't art or as uneducated Denny sates "just a pile of rocks that somene dumped in the lake" to get a much closer look. Maybe even better try and SCULPT one yourself! I'm very sure that this is an extreme longshot considering the fact that the average "typical" Utahan would have to pack up 3 mini vans full of kids in order to do so! Wake up people! How about we stop building these mini hotels that some call homes today? What a joke, let's drill for oil! Where do we drill next our own foreheads?!