Comments about ‘House panel to consider bill on Utah wilderness’

Conservatives - conserve! This is your big chance. Or do you want to turn Utah over to the eco-vandals?

If I hear another New Yorker exclaim:

"This part of OUR [emphasis supplied] country is some of the most remarkably pristine and beautiful land in the world and this bill would ensure that it stays that way forever,"

I think I'll scream!

The Utah Congressional delegation should respond with a proposal to make 1/6 of New York a wilderness. Many have described parts of New York City as a howling wasteland, so we're already on our way.

Seriously, where does a back-east liberal get off proposing that 1/6 of ANY state but his own be stolen from its people? And, at the same time, that the school districts of Utah be permanently and unalterably beggared by denying access to school trust lands that contain untold riches?

Maybe we can get Joe Cannon to yell, "You steal" the next time Rep. Hinchey takes the floor.

I like the idea of setting aside the land as a Federally run Wilderness area - as long as Utah may tax the Federal Government for the land's non-use.

Our Children deserve more - this is their trust land and their money that goes into their Education.

I'm an avid explorer of all the proposed areas and I use foot(20+ mile back country hikes), bicycle, 4x4 (and even dirt bike sometimes) types of propulsion.

I'm all for keeping oil, gas and mining out because they just lock everything up anyway, but off road vehicles just excludes way to many and I believe it could actually be considered a form of discrimination, especially towards the handicapped.

I carry at least 5 gallons of water in my 4x4 and I've actually lost count of how many times I've shared that water with unprepared and/or poor calculating hikers and bikers way out back. We CAN all get along and help each other out, we are all essentially there for the same reasons - love of the outdoors and those particular areas.

I support the concept of preserving these great places and I like it to be quiet and not torn up to, but excluding to many is where the environmental groups seem to go astray.

I would support a wilderness bill provided the same percentage of every state be set aside as wilderness. this woud include New York, Illinois, California, Massachussets and other left leaning states. What is good for Utah should be good for every state. Why should we be the only ones to share the joy?

You want to compare Utah with New York state? New York has designated 8.5 percent of the state as "forever wild" wilderness in its constitution (namely 2.6 million acres of state land in the Adirondack Forest Preserve). If you applied that percentage to Utah, it would be 4.5 million acres. Funny, I don't see any Utah lawmakers proposing that. If it's reasonable for New York, why not for Utah?

Note that there is only one tiny Federal wild reserve in New York. The rest of wild New York is state land, controlled and maintained by the state. On which land, the people of New York have the freedom to do things like removing areas from protection for well sites and reservoirs for the use of surrounding towns.

I have no problem with the people of a state, including Utah or New York, declaring an area a wilderness. They still maintain control and can amend that decision anytime they want.

Not true of federal wild lands, however.

That's why I propose that the Utah Congressional delegation introduce legislation to force ANOTHER 1/6 of the state of New York into FEDERAL wilderness status.

That will give them an idea of what their Congressional delegation is doing to us.

Just look at home many fundraisers Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and other environmental groups have hosted for Congressman Mo Hinchey from Ithaca, New York. This is a "throw away" issue for him. It doesn't impact one square inch of land in his district or state. And to respond to "Geezer," there is already more than 4.5 million acres of wilderness in Utah. In 1984, the Utah Delegation passed the RARE 1 bill, which created several million acres of wilderness on Forest Service lands in Utah. In 2004, Congress passed the Cedar Mountain Wilderness bill which placed nearly a million acres of BLM into Wilderness. Last year, Congress passed a Washington county wilderness bill which put more in. If you add it all up, it's more than 4.5 million acres, and besides, all of the remaining wilderness "study areas" in Utah are managed as de facto wilderness right now. So it's not even close. I say, let's put the Sterling Forest in New York into wilderness area and see how well hypocrites like Hinchey scream to high heaven. Would be entertaining anyway.

You should all feel lucky that you still have some pristine areas left to hand to your children and your children's children. Coming from my persepective in Europe, we have to search very hard to find areas that are left untouched by the hand of man...if only those before me decided something different when they had the chance you do now...then I wouldn't have to travel all the way to the states or another continent to really experience the wild.

It all boils down to a person's belief system about what the earth is all about. Many of us believe that the earth was created for man, and that man has a stewardship to take care of it, but also that God provided natural resources and ways for us to nourish and sustain ourselves. Others take a view that man is the "intruder" onto the earth and some like Cass Sunsein believe that animals have "just as much right" as humans to have their needs take precedence over man. Some environmentalists actually worship the earth, wile people of faith believe that's idolatry. How much "wilderness" in a legal sense is enough? Especially when much of the land that is not wilderness is already protected through other means. Strip away the emotion of the word "wilderness" and look at its practical and legal implications. You'll be far less impressed. We can protect the land and still not have it be locked away into "wilderness" designation.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but that's not the heart of this issue. Regardless of how anyone feels about what the land should be used for, this bill is purely about states rights.

Follow the money: You're making up numbers, dude. There is only a little over 1 million acres of designated wilderness in Utah right now, mostly on Forest Service lands. Cedar Mountains are only about 100,000 acres of wilderness. Total BLM wilderness in the state, including the new Washington County BLM wilderness, is only about 250,000 acres total. While there are some fine Forest Service wilderness areas - designation of BLM wilderness lags far behind.

Why is it that people think resource extraction is the path to riches while the economics of tourism with respect to Utah's public lands and wilderness is ignored. Tourism is a renewable resource and having continually hosted guests this year through all seasons they are coming to Utah to see these areas. They are spending considerable amounts of money on airline tickets, ski tickets, rental cars, hotels, gear, etc. Tourism is not about low paying jobs. The areas supposedly affected by wilderness, "land grabs," "locking up the land," "the feds," should quit whining and instead position themselves to better capitalize on tourism revenues associated with wilderness, parks, etc.

Your reverence for the land is touching, if a little hypocritical.

There is plenty of wild land in Europe. Places like Scotland, the Balkans, even the Alps has some wild places. But even if that's not true, I don't see much European sentiment for returning land to wilderness status.

Everyone wants to preserve someone else's wild places. If Europeans really want wild places, make a million hectares or so off limits today and wait a hundred years.

Keep your hands off Utah. We're not the hicks you think we are. We are perfectly capable of making intelligent decisions about what should or should not be wilderness.

Obama should read this newspaper. He would know he can't loose by just establishing a few more national monuments in Utah.

I notice this il informed statement. "I don't see much European sentiment for returning land to wilderness status."

The city lived in: Frankfurt, took advantage of American troops leaving by establishing forest were our army once trained. You have wonderful forest you can enjoy near the city.

If you travel the alps. You are more pristine than the mountains in Northern Utah. You can't just clear cut any slope in Europe to please a developer.

Skiing is socialistic in Europe. The city pays for the ski lifts, which are free. The idea being all the business and the people in these communities will benefit by the city government running the chair lefts. This is why Europeans are better skiers.

There are also socialist mountaineering clubs that teach climbing.

It so much harder for kids in Europe to get bored enough to become criminals.

If you do well in school going to a university costs you nothing.

So much of Utah's land is already tied up in national parks, reserves and wilderness areas, the last thing I want to see is another chunk of utah land become off limit to the general population in the name of "conservation".

Why is it that so many Utahns fail to grasp the meaning of the word "Federal"? Federal land belongs to the people of the United States! It never did belong to Utah, there is nothing to "take back." The very concept is silly and uninformed.

I am a Utahn, I have lived my entire life, excepting my two-year mission to Europe, in Utah. I have been to these places. I have backpacked in, hiked around, and enjoyed the silence and the uninterrupted views. Compare us with eastern states? Please do! Look at what has been lost back there because no one had the foresight to preserve enough truly wild lands. We have a chance to avoid that terrible mistake, and preserve some of the last wild lands in the U.S. I'm sure there are a lot of easterners who would dearly love to be able to "take back" some of their lost wilderness. Don't forget--once wilderness is lost, it's lost. Only in extremely rare cases will you ever get any of it back. Let's not lose these unbelievable places.

FYI: The Adirondack Preserve is 6 million acres of publicly (NY state)protected land. New Yorkers know the value of preservation exactly because they see what a howling wasteland is. So 'Lord, give me patience', stick to the one thing you know and see, Utah.

How about one of the Congressmen from Utah submit a bill to have the Mall in Washington DC designated wilderness. We need to protect it from politicians that think they should to pander to groups outside of their own district. Seems silly, doesn't it?

Keeping these Federal lands undamaged and unpolluted for future generations is the right thing to do.

Tourism will benefit our local communities.