Opponents of Owyhee Canyonlands monument fear economic woes

Published 1:48 pm Monday, December 28, 2015

ONTARIO, Ore. — In the debate over the creation of a national monument in Malheur County’s Owyhee Canyonlands, the local opposition, holds up the similarly-sized 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah as a reason not to have one.

Those opposed to protections of a 2.5 million-acre area in the canyonlands include members of the Task Force in Opposition to the Wilderness/Monument Proposal of the Owyhee Canyonlands. While proponents, including members of Oregon Natural Desert Association, maintain that local industries will not be impacted by a designation, local opponents do not agree, instead saying a designation would greatly impact Malheur County’s economic future.

Indeed, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is cited by the Garfield County Commission as a major reason for its county’s economic downturn.

“We declared a state of emergency in June,” Commissioner Leland Pollock said in an email to the Argus. “After 20 years of the monument, the schools have dramatically lost students,” he said.

Since the Utah monument was designated, enrollment at Escalante High School dropped from 150 to 50, he said.

“They are considering closing the school,” Pollock said.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton in recognition of the region’s unspoiled natural beauty, according to information from Headwaters Economics.

The monument is located in Kane and Garfield counties in Utah, but ironically the signing ceremony was conducted across the border in Arizona, said Dixie Brunner, editor of the South Utah News, Kanab, Utah, who attended the event.

That only increased the anger of the local residents, Brunner said.

“People (in Kane County) went absolutely nuts when the monument was designated,” she said.

That included black balloons released, big protests, and the like, Brunner said.

“The local and state politicians tried to fight it in every way possible-to no avail, she said. “Even years later, they still point to what an awful land grab it was.”

The land in question was always government land with many restrictions, but the people in Kane County felt that this was yet another layer of restrictions and a travesty to the Western way of life, Brunner said.

Years after it was designated, the monument is still a source of deep resentment to the locals, she said, but it has had a few positives.

“People have come to travel around and view it,” Brunner said.

The Bureau of Land Management, which manages the monument, has built three visitor centers in remote locations, and do get a lot of visitors of which benefit the small communities, she said.

“The teaching aspect has been great, because we get many professionals studying it,” Brunner said.

In the regional reports about the Utah monument debate, opponents complained about the loss of natural resource jobs, such as mining, timber and agriculture.

However, Headwaters Economics in its report, which covered the two counties the monument sits in, said that those commodity industries were becoming a smaller share to the overall economy in the region before the creation of the monument.

Service jobs now account for the majority of employment growth in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Region in recent decades, the report said.

Closer to Malheur County is Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument on the Oregon-California border which, at less than 70,000 acres, is nowhere near the size of the monument in Utah or the monument being sought in Malheur County.

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument consists of approximately 62,000 acres of BLM-administered land in rugged southwestern Oregon and privately-owned land is often adjacent to public land in the monument, according to BLM documents.

This monument was also established by Clinton in 2000, and is the first monument set aside solely for the preservation of biodiversity, the BLM said.

Bert Etling, editor of the Ashland Daily Tidings, said, having been in Oregon just a little more than a year, that it is seen as a draw for tourism.

“My impression is that, in the tourist-dependent Ashland area, at least, the monument is seen as one of the jewels in a crown of spectacular natural resources attracting people here for outdoor recreation and is an asset in that respect,” Etling said.

But, he acknowledge the people in the greater Jackson County area take a different view.

One of those is Jackson County Commissioner Doug Breidenthal who said he is unhappy with the loss of tax base as ranches within the monument are sold off and bought to be included as part of the monument.

While the boundaries of the monument have not changed, the total acreage of the public land within the monument has increased, Breidenthal said.

He also criticized the closure of roads in the monument limiting or closing off access by people with disabilities.

Road closures are a part of the management plan for the monument, he said.

While opponents call the wilderness and monument proposals overreaching, proponents say the proposals are needed to ensure the canyonlands are kept in pristine condition in the future.

The issue will be on a nonbinding referendum Malheur County will vote on March 8.