Posted on 05/16/2006 9:32:38 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
DENVER - The federal government's rush to develop energy on millions of acres of federal land in the West has left vast natural and cultural resources to languish, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said.
Archaeological sites including Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, which contains more than 6,000 recorded artifacts, and Utah's Nine Mile Canyon, dubbed the longest art gallery in the world with more than 10,000 American Indian petroglyphs, lie undocumented and unprotected, said Richard Moe, head of the National Trust.
Only 17 million acres of the 262 million acres that Bureau of Land Management oversees in 12 Western states have been surveyed to identify cultural resources, the preservation group said in report released Tuesday.
"There are people all over the West who love these sites and are working hard to protect them," Moe told The Associated Press last week. "But you can't protect them if you don't know where they are."
The report says the bureau doesn't have enough money or staff to survey much of its land or adequately protect resources from off-road vehicles and other threats. At the 164,000-acre Canyons of the Ancients in southwestern Colorado only one ranger is in charge of law enforcement, the report said.
Further sapping the bureau is a federal mandate to speed up approval of energy development on public lands, the report said. Funds are being siphoned to assess and protect sites where companies and ranchers want to mine, graze livestock or drill oil and gas, report author Destry Jarvis said.
Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Celia Boddington said the agency's finances are more complex than the report portrays, and employees funded by one program often help with others, including cultural preservation.
She also disputed that energy development is overwhelming the agency's other duties.
"We are required by law to manage for multiple uses of the land," Boddington said. "In cases where we permit energy development, that's a tiny proportion of public lands."
The private, nonprofit National Trust declared the entire National Landscape Conservation System to be endangered. The conservation system covers about 26 million acres of bureau land and includes national monuments, conservation areas, historic and scenic trails.
Boo hoo. Drill in what you can, strip mine what you can't drill in, pave the rest.
They'll only be happy if we are hunter-gatherers.
Of course, then we'd disturb the cave sites by living in them.
OH NO! Someone may get to spend all of that money on something useful. We can't have that.
What rush are they talking about?
He's leaving radio?
Why would he do that? Limbaugh already has more money then God.
Just as risky as that tax cut for the rich.
What I thought!
Line after line of dreck and the only point is the areas haven't been completely surveyed as to Indian relics and endangered animals.
Cripes, let the now rich casino owning Indians do a bit of that looking and recording their past on their dime. As to the endangered animals, don't look as if they are found, we can't drill for oil and gas.
The oil and gas companies know how to drill and not spill. Bring 'em on so I can get reasonably priced energy.
Just for the record: I see no risk whatsoever.
Exactly how much to petroglyphs contribute to the GNP?
Admittedly, they aren't the drag on it that lawyers, government aid recipients, and the socialists of both parties that run our government, but geez.
Looks like a lot of developing energy in the West.
Damn, I wish I wuz him!
That one that started in the last Ice Age.
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