01.29.16

Does Grand Canyon need monument buffer? Arizona commissioners, environmentalists disagree

Rep. Raul Grijalva's plan would create permanent ban on new uranium mining around national park

A proposal to give Grand Canyon National Park a protective buffer bigger than the park itself is spurring a struggle over the land and resources beyond the canyon rims.

An Arizona congressman has proposed a Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument covering 1.7 million acres of high desert and forest north and south of the national park.

Environmentalists hope that President Barack Obama will treat them to such a parting gift before he leaves office next year even if Congress won't approve it.

At the heart of the proposal is a permanent ban on new uranium mining claims near America's second-most-popular national park, which sits astride the Colorado River on 1.2 million acres.

Some Arizona officials, though, reject the plan as a threat to jobs, timber management, public access and state control over hunting.

This month, 15 current and former Arizona Game and Fish Commission members wrote to the president asking him to leave the land alone. The signers included all five current members of the governor-appointed commission.

They asked Obama to leave the land’s management to the state, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

“That partnership is not broken,” they wrote, “and we do not believe another layer of bureaucracy is needed to conserve or ‘protect’ 1.7 million more acres on the Arizona Strip or Kaibab National Forest.”

The monument proposed by Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., would cover the Kaibab Plateau north of the park, including both federal forest and range lands. It would include the Kaibab National Forest both on the plateau and in the section surrounding Tusayan south of the park.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., harshly criticized the plan in a written statement that said it would "kill jobs, stifle development, permanently prevent mining and future grazing leases, impose significant (off-roading) closures and significantly restrict hunting, timber harvesting and commercial recreational activities."

With the exception of mining, monument backers have denied the monument would do those things. They say a new monument would require a management plan written with public participation, but that access, hunting, grazing and timber management are guaranteed to continue in Grijalva's proposal.


By:  Brandon Loomis
Source: AZ Central