Gold Butte needs our protection

By Terri Robertson, Las Vegas

Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016 | 2 a.m.

My father, George Potter, would have been 114 years old on July 27. He was a miner, a hunter and an explorer and had a great love for the earth.

Thanks to him I have had a life rich in nature and the beauty of wilderness.

In the late 1960s, human beings began to use Red Rock as a home. Small groups began living in two spring areas. They created large trash piles and numerous fire rings, and used the rock landscape as a shooting gallery.

Thus began our family’s efforts to save Dad’s favorite places. Thanks to people like Mary Koslowski, Howard Booth, Jeff Zucker and Fred Noll, the Bureau of Land Management began the process to create the Red Rock Recreation Area. It was the only land designation available in 1970. Our community then worked to change the designation from recreation area to national conservation area in the 1980s.

Through the years I have written many letters to the editor on land-preservation issues. I am hoping this will be the last one I have to write. All my dad’s favorite places have received permanent land designation except Gold Butte.

I urge the creation of the Gold Butte National Monument. How wonderful it would be to visit my father’s grave site next July 27 and know that our work was done.

Thank you to each and every one in the land-preservation community who heeded the call these past 60 years. Thank you to all who continue to work on Red Rock, Sloan Canyon and Tule Springs. May we begin 2017 grateful in the knowledge that another of our most beautiful of places will be known as Gold Butte National Monument.