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Show 169 monumcnt." 519 The editorial ended with a rhetorical question: "What is more important for the future: More gravel, or a national monument left as nature left it, for all generations to enjoy?"520 Although the answer was clear in light of this editorial, previous opinions printed on the same page would have Jed to a different conclusion. A similar test of how the public and 1hc press would react to mining came a year and a halflatcr. Clair Bird, who held claim to 640 acres in Capitol Reef National Monument, gave the state thirty days' notice he would begin strip mining 10,000 tons of flagstone. The state-owned land was four miles inside the western boundary of the monument and about 400 yards from the visitors' center. Bird had paid eighty dollars annually since 1964 to maintain the lease. The state and federal government had never negotiated an agreement to transfer the land to the National Park Service. Bird argued that his plans were "in the best of economic interests for Wayne County and the State of Utah," and estimated that the value of the stone, when mined, would exceed two•hundred million dollars." 521 Gordon Hannston, executive director of the Department of Natural Resources, was quoted by both state papers vouching for the validity of Bird 's lease. These newspapers also quoted Capitol Reef Superintendent Frank Wallace, who said the park service "could not prevent the proposed strip mining.'.5 22 As with the planned gravel mining in Arches, state newspapers focused primarily on opposition. Conservation groups, including the Sierra Club and the Wasatch Mountain si 9 Deseret News, 'The Choice at Arches: Gravel or Grandeur?" November 14, 1969, A 18. SlO]bid. m Salt Lake Trib1111e, ··State to Tackle Strip Mining Dispute," April 28, 1971, 12. m Ibid.; Hartt Wixom, ''Strip Mining May Endanger Capitol Reef," Deseret News, April 27, 1971, 131 |
