Friday, Sept. 27, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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Nevada’s public lands are a source of joy, pride and locally based income.
But President Donald Trump’s Bureau of Land Management doesn’t see the same value in our public lands. The BLM would rather let out-of-state oil and gas exploration companies gamble with our public lands.
Our relationship with these public lands is for the long-term, not for get-rich-and-get-out schemes. The places being harmed are popular tourist attractions, places where we have forged memories and connections.
These are places like Lamoille Canyon, Harrison Pass, Ruby Marshes and Lakes, the Ruby Mountains, Meadow Valley Wash, the Mormon Mountains Wilderness and Great Basin National Park. These precious places are cherished for their beauty, for their remoteness, for the startling presence of surface water in Nevada’s two deserts.
Speculators with their hit-and run, boom-and-bust threats are not welcome here.
Here’s how much I love Great Basin National Park and the wide-open spaces around it: My son and his fiancee became husband and wife in Lehman Cave just a year ago. I just can’t imagine the impacts that gas and oil rigs would have on the places I love most in Nevada.
Our home in Southern Nevada will not be spared, either. While none of the land being targeted is in Clark County, many of the places being targeted for drilling are just on the other side of our border with Lincoln County, in areas where waters drain out to Lake Mead.
Wildlife will be affected too — animals such as federally protected and endangered species, including desert bighorn sheep and the Moapa dace. Nevadans will see and feel these impacts, which will no doubt change where Nevadans and tourists choose to visit.
Nevadans and other tourists deeply appreciate our outdoor spaces, and there are numbers to prove it. Public lands bring in considerable tourism dollars that support our local economies. The Elko County Commission released a study showing that “in Elko County from 2006 through 2008, outdoor recreation generated an average of $165 million annually ... through commercial retail sales, services, lodging and personal income.” And “the personal income received by Elko County residents directly from employment in those businesses averaged over $40 million.” No doubt those numbers have only grown in the decade since.
Another study by the National Park Service shows that “153,000 visitors to Great Basin National Park in 2018 spent $8.8 million in communities near the park. That spending supported 121 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $9 million.” (That includes the rooms that housed some of our family members in Baker for the wedding. The rest of us were in a campground.) In total, those are some serious dollars that benefit people in White Pine County.
On Sept. 13, the BLM state office announced its sale of leases for Nov. 12, putting some 548,000 acres on the chopping block, and another 777,000 acres up for grabs to the highest bidder for its Dec. 10 lease sale. That’s more than 1.25 million acres open to hit-and-run speculators. The BLM will accept protest comments until Oct. 14.
I urge my neighbors in Clark, Elko, Lincoln, White Pine, Eureka, and Lander counties to send your own comments to the BLM state office to the attention of Nevada Director of Fluid Mineral Leasing Kemba Anderson at 1340 Financial Blvd., Reno, NV 89502, or send a fax to 775-861-6745.
We need to ensure Nevada’s natural spaces remain open and accessible for all of us, today and for future generations. Nevada wants to be a leader in renewable energy and outdoor recreational tourism, and gas and oil rigs do not do this for us.
Jane Feldman is conservation chair of the Sierra Club’s Southern Nevada Group.
