Yes, there should be shame, but not because state school trust lands were sold in Bluff, but because extreme environmentalists don’t want to share land with anyone except Conservation Land Foundation devotees. They are using everything in their power and in their banks to force local Native Americans, anglos, and hispanics away from land they call home in San Juan County, Utah. These are families with local roots, who didn’t migrate to more enticing lands in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico centuries ago.
Moreover, CLF followers don’t want to compromise as they greedily seek more and more land in this current “campaign” for more national monuments. The state of Utah covers 52,696,960 acres. They have already given up 35,033,603 acres to 13 different national parks and monuments. That means the federal government owns, runs or manages 55.5 percent of the state. And they say Utah is greedy?
The scenario in San Juan County is even worse. Only 8 percdent of San Juan County’s 5,077,120 acres is privately owned. Those with a socialist mind set don’t seem to grasp the idea that private property rights exist in the proposed Bears Ears area. Some areas in that coveted land do not meet the definition of “public lands,” including 43 grazing allotments, 661 water-right infrastructures, 151,000 acres of state trust land, 18,000 acres of private property, and hundreds of miles of roads. This leads us to the most recent whining of the week — Comb Ridge.
The actual Comb Ridge wilderness consists of 17,400 acres; however, adjacent to Comb Ridge proper exists Scholl and Institutional Trust Lands Administration land. SITLA land is not public land, it is state land. Even though local people have long used it for their personal playground, they were trespassing.
Two weeks ago 391 acres of SITLA land were sold by the state to the highest bidder. That land would be 0.02 percent of the total Comb Ridge acreage. And the playground bullies don’t want to share even that pinpoint of land with anyone else.
Janet Wilcox
Blanding