9 Mile is a test of whether Americans and Utahns, in the end, value anything except the almighty dollar. Our lives are going to change in wrenching ways, as energy in all of its forms becomes more expensive. As it becomes scarcer, its economic value will rise, and everything we create and move will become more expensive, and our dollars will buy less.
As this inevitably happens, we will find out what other treasures we will sacrifice on the altar of "low fuel costs". You will see posters here who will maintain that as the pinch gets tighter, we need to throw 9 Mile on the bonfire (kind of like burning the Mona Lisa to heat your home). But ultimately, we will need new sources of energy, and will have turned the fossil fuel corner. At that time, we will look back to find what was expendable, what we were willing to sell to maintain our self-indulgent lifestyle.

It's also Utah's greatest art museum. Let's put it under protection.

Wow, I expect more thoughtful opining from this editorial page. There are exhaustive processes (red tape) required before the full development can come online. A Draft Environmental Impact Statement was just completed that addresses in-depth the achaeological issues in the canyon. The BLM, EPA, State officials and many other stakeholdrs have been working diligently to address the needed balance between development and protection. And the full EIS is yet to be done. To date, Bill Barrett Corp. has spent about $2 million in studies and road improvements. All of these important facts were omitted from today's editorial. Maybe all the attention from this paper stems from the fact that former DNews environmental reporter Jerry Spangler is heading up the activist efforts. That pontential conflict is also omitted. Way to blow it, Editorial Board.

Yeah, this is a topic worthy of space in a professional paper. Good grief! Step it up PEOPLE!

Come on! We've got enough natural gas over there to heat our homes for a thousand years, and we're worried about a few old rock wall scratchings? This isn't the Mona LIsa, folks.

Many Utahns pretty openly disdain Native Americans- it will be hard to convince them to preserve any petroglyph art or that anything produced by ancient Native Americans even has any value at all.

Thank you, Deseret News, for speaking up in defense of that which cannot speak for itself. These resources belong to all humankind, and deserve to be protected from a headlong rush to energy development.

This is not rocket science. If the etchings get dusty just send a crew with feather dusters or garden hoses to clean them off just before tourist season.

Returned from 9mile over Memorial Day. After returning home I spend $25 with a high-pressure nozzle removing the Mag Chloride ("cement") after following a BBC 18-wheeler with chains on his tires tearing up the road.
Maybe I could hire wrz to feather dust my truck off since he seems to have such a scholarly solution. As a property owner in 9mile canyon I've been witness to BBC's "integrity" of canyon preservation in stealing my water from my irrigation ditches to 'water' the roads. Unfortunately I don't have the resources to fight the behemoth BBC. Thank God for people like Jerry Spangler who have some integrity and help protect Native American art 1000's of years older than Mona Lisa.
Bravo DN for publishing articles such as these.

Bull crap.How does jerry know some cow herder or sheep herder didnt draw this kidddie drawings. If this was in a city, they would call it graffity, and sandblast it.