Op-Ed: Feds 'Obsessed' with Undermining National Monument

Writing of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Stephen Trimble describes "a precious permanent stream in arid country, an Edenic landscape of waterfalls and springs in a maze of sinuous sandstone canyons. The river's remoteness has been the Escalante's bane and gift — sparing archaeological and paleontological wonders."

But with the Trump administration in charge, all of that may be in danger. Trump's "Department of the Interior seems to have a particular hunger for destroying Utah's irreplaceable redrock canyons and a tragic obsession with undermining the integrity of the Escalante," Trimble writes.

The Bureau of Land Management has taken several actions to compromise the protected land, including a major reduction in the monument's size in 2017 and a proposed resource management plan that "cater[s] even more absolutely to extractive industry, damaging off-road vehicles, and the whims of a tiny number of elected officials."

Trimble condemns the "pathetically Western pipe-dream" of extractive industry fueling unlimited growth: "Introducing cows to the riparian oasis of the Escalante is no way to treat an icon."