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Show Ill Ms. Pettis asked the man vihat he meant by that and he answered, "We're going to push him off." A real threat, or just talk? Jan Knight says, "I don't think the threat was serious. It's a highly emotional situation and people say a lot of things they don't mean." Dick Carter disagrees. "On two other occasions during that afternoon field t^ip I was threatened again by two different people," he states. "I perceived them as serious threats." At the public meeting which began at 6:30 in the Hanksville School, more than 120 people filled the room, the majority of them residents from in and around Hanksville. Many wore the stamp of the rugged land which had bred them - faces seamed from sun and vieather, bodies hard and lean-muscled. A number of the men had on boots and Western hats; some of the viomen viore the elaborate hairdos favored in rural communities. The babies they cradled grevi noisier as the meeting got underway. The first speaker talked about the high uranium content of the Dirty Devil area, uranium which is needed as an alternate energy source, he said. He claimed that the region wasn't true wilderness because it already had roads. Jan Knight explains, "There's virtually no place that doesn't have some kind of road through it, even just a little dirt trail. The definition of roads can vary in these wilderness inventory areas - a lot depends on the visual impact of vihat is already there." One by one others in the audience got up to express their opposition to the BLM, in voices strong with conviction. |