New West Microcosm #3

In my last entry I argued that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable difference in worldview between those clinging to the ideas of the Old West and those advancing the New West. If I am right, I am not going to change anybody's mind by arguing the salience of any particular point. Like how a gravel pit is a destructive and economically backward way to use the SITLA land in the Torrey-Teasdale gateway to Capitol Reef National Park community.

Instead of arguing I want to envision other possible uses of the SITLA land currently in line to be turned into a hole in the ground.

New pit in paradise

Oddly, there is another ongoing pit being dug in sight of my home. I understand it is on private land so perhaps there is nothing that could have been done to prevent this scar. To the Old West mindset the land is only a resource to be dug up, mined, logged, drained or grazed. If it can't be used up, it is not a resource. In this case, a private land owner was offered a lease to mine and accepted the offer in order to make some income from the land. Sadly, they have also ruined their land and undoubtedly badly damaged their personal balance sheet. That is the way of unsustainable extraction. A little income today in turn for the long term liability of hole in the ground, mine tailings and ruined land left for future generations to suffer.

The SITLA land could go another direction. Across the West, gateway towns to national parks are prospering. They are experiencing the best sustainable economic performance of any rural area. The areas committed to the boom and bust cycles of extraction industry lag further and further behind. Torrey Teasdale is at the juncture where it could become a model gateway community or decide, for some misguided sense of custom, to dig itself up.

Future gravel pit?

The SITLA land was originally designated to be used for residential development as the most valuable. This designation mysteriously was dropped. One suggestion is that there is a lack of water. One glance at the semi-arid environment and one is inclined to shrug and say it seems to be so. But it is not so. There is plenty of water. The problem is how we use it. 85% of the water in the state of Utah goes to agriculture and industry. Most to agriculture. And in high elevation Wayne County it all goes on hay, 24/7 from early spring to late fall the massive sprinklers never stop. It takes about one acre foot of water to take care of a one family for a year. Hay requires at least five acre feet for hay. Mostly more. And hay is a low cash value crop. The only way farmers can make a go of it is that the water is provided to them basically free and a few dollars per acre feet. But this is the same Colorado River drainage area water that Las Vegas sometimes pays $5,000 and acre foot for, Los Angeles as much as $10,000. Economically, it is almost catastrophically inefficient to waste the water pouring it on hay.

An economically arrangement with urban downstream users to lease the water rights, and save a little to use for homes on the SITLA land would be a vast improvement. There is plenty of water. Just don't pour it on hay. The water would need to be treated, but a wise land developer could arrange for the treatment of enough water for 20 or 30 homes easily, efficiently, economically. There is plenty of water. All that is lacking is the vision and will. The farmer would benefit, SITLA would come out ahead, the county would come out hugely ahead, the valley's natural integrity and beauty would be sustained, the home owners would be lucky to have such a location.

I would be happiest to move into a place like Torrey and close the gate behind me to any more development. An unjustifiably entitled position, to be sure, but a typical one. Now I see that my closing the gate is going to leave the land unprotected. Better to plan and develop the are with people who are there for the natural beauty.

In upcoming posts I want to talk about local town annexation, about the Wayne County airport (38U), and dark skies. I want to envision what this exceptional gateway community could be.

Killing the golden goose

In Wayne County, Utah this week the decision was made to go ahead and put a gravel pit in the county's most desirable residential neighborhood. It is backward economically and an amoral thing to do and I am wondering how such a thing happens.

Double rainbow, and then some, in Wayne County

The gravel pit is on Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA) land, one of the myriad checkerboard pieces of state land that is scattered geometrically but not politically across the state. SITLA had previously earmarked the parcel of land in Teasdale as best suited to sell for residential use. The land all around the parcel is zoned by Wayne County as residential and agricultural. The property values in the area are high and getting higher and are much greater than any other place within 100 miles. That is because the valley Teasdale and Torrey are situated in boasts of an unparalleled natural beauty. Torrey is the gateway community to Capitol Reef National Park and was considered at one point to be included in the Park given its environmental splendor. Many of the residents in the valley are so called "move-ins" and second home owners, people who are here for the scenery and outdoor recreation. I am one. As such, we pay full property taxes unlike most of our "local" neighbors who take 90% property tax greenbelt exemptions. Because of this, a minority of the property owners in the county pay a majority of the taxes. All the same, we are greatly resented.

I was told a story a couple of years ago about a public Wayne County Commission meeting held to review the county's bi-annual resource utilization plan. Most of  Capitol Reef National Park is in Wayne County and the Park superintendent was invited. The superintendent thumbed through the proposed plan and noticed that the National Park was not mentioned as a county resource. He asked the commissioners about the omission. The commissioners reportedly stared at him, stony faced, before one finally responded, "Son, you can't mine it, you cannot log it, you can't graze it, hell you cannot even get the water out of there. It ain't a resource." The superintendent, dumbfounded, walked out. Rural politicians are known to believe that all conservation is bad and all extraction is good. It is an archaic belief, one that is on the wrong side of history, and one that holds their counties back.

SITLA is about raising money for public schools. As good state residents their policy is to go along with county zoning and leadership wishes. For instance, when the Wayne County Commissioners objected to The Nature Conservancy buying a conservation easement from SITLA on lands within the county, an easement to protect the endangered sage grouse, SITLA relented and did not sell the easement. Never mind the imperiled sage grouse. If Wayne County were to say the Teasdale parcel is zoned residential and that a gravel pit would be absurd there, as it will be, SITLA would agree. That is until recently. When challenged by the Utah County Association, SITLA backed off and no longer pressed for a zoning variance from the county. And even though the county would make more money collecting property taxes from the parcel should SITLA sell it for residential use, the county insists on a gravel pit. Local residents have banded together with petitions, packed the meeting halls, sent in letters, filed lawsuits, and even offered to subsidize the gravel pit contractor to use another site, all to be stonewalled by Wayne County commissioners.

What is going on here? Is it a simple minded ideology that all conservation is bad and all extraction good? That is hard to believe, but it could be. Or are there backroom dealings? The politically connected gravel pit extraction company, Brown Brothers Construction (BBC), is said to want the gravel pit in Teasdale. Residents have noted that there are closer, more appropriate SITLA lands available for gravel that are not in a residential community and that would save Brown Brothers money, but BBC does not budge. It is said that the Utah County Association is Koch brothers supported. My guess is that BBC is just a small fish in an even smaller pond. My bet is that politicians at the level of U.S. Senator Hatch have passed down the word that all resistance to extraction is to be squashed and that SITLA and Wayne County are happily obeying, smiling on the way to the bank with their Koch gratuities in one hand and goose feathers in the other.

"War" on coal: moving assets the wrong way

Todd Wilkinson at the Jackson Hole News & Guide has a good piece out this week on Wyoming and their self-induced energy industry related wounds. Wilkinson identifies the strange "fist of defiance" the state Republicans raise when faced with the 21st century. It is a head scratcher for me until I accept that the politicians are wholly owned by the energy industry and behave like it. There is no other explanation.

High Speed Rail in the West: Bring in people instead of climate change

It is too bad. Wyoming citizens outside the Jackson Hole area might be inclined to believe that the only real industry is the extractive industry. It is one they can see, one their state has history in, and yet one that in the end has always treated the state badly. It is too bad because these folks could use some true statesmen to guide them out of the vicious cycle of boom and bust and and landscape laid to waste as a result.

Timothy Egan, a man of the West and astute observer and writer about the New West has an editorial in today's New York Times in which he wonders what is happening to his home town of Seattle. The West coast large cities from San Francisco north are boom towns. One result is real estate costs and congestion are spiraling up and out of control. What does Wyoming have? Plenty of real estate and very little congestion. In addition much of the state is still beautiful. If the right wing statesmen in charge of the place could look in a different direction, they might attract some of this business. But this would mean they need to protect the land instead of trying to graze, mine, damn, drill and log it. Old West is the wrong side of history. Wyoming, drop your energy extraction habit, quite trying to ship fossil fuel west to the coast. Try turning things the other way.

Instead of coal ports, how about, say, a high speed rail moving the real assets, people, in and out of your state?

Mining for failure

Last century? 19th century?

Yesterday Brian Maffly had another excellent piece in the Salt Lake Tribune about the costly flailing about of the coal industry in Utah and the resulting conflicts of interest engaged by that industry's captured legislators. This morning Torrey House Press author (for which we are grateful!) Terry Tempest Williams has an op-ed in the New York Times on an inspired move she and husband Brooke have made on the same subject.

I expect I will be highlighting Maffly's work frequently on this site. He has the legislator's number and does a good job exposing their antics. That said I am a little surprised how gentle Maffly's words are. He keeps the gloves on. It took me a second read of his article to see he was accusing the actors involved in a $53 million loan of public money to the state's private coal industry of working with a blatant conflict of interest and in bad faith. For example, Jeffrey Holt, who stands to gain up to $3 million of the loan as a personal incentive fee also chaired the Utah Transportation Commission, which prioritizes projects for public funding. Holt and his crew are working to get public funding for their private gain for two projects, one a new rail line to haul the coal and two, a new port in Oakland to load the coal on ships to send to China.

Coal is Old West. Bloomberg News reported a year ago that Beijing will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants this year.

Brooke and Terry Tempest Williams are New West. The future belongs to clean energy and those who recognize this simple economic fact will be those who benefit most. It is unfortunate for Americans that virtually the only people on the planet who don't believe it are U.S. Republicans. The Republican legislators, particularly in Utah are funded by the energy industry. The industry knows the facts, but a basic failure of capitalism stems from what economists call an "externality." An externality is where someone else other than the producer bears the cost of production, in this case the cost of pollution. In order for the public to put up with the costs, the industry lavishly funds willing legislators to promote their business and, say, make them $53 million dollar loans with taxpayer funds. Brooke and Terry have a brilliant strategy to use the energy of New West thinkers to keep the Old West energy in the ground. #keepitintheground And Brooke and Terry are using their own money.

I want to say much more about this in future posts. For now, consider quickly the graph below. But before you look, given how much time and energy politicians like Utah Governor Herbert or Rep. Rob Bishop spend promoting extractive industry, what percentage would you think it makes up of Utah's economy? Are you surprised that all of agriculture, natural resources, and mining (which includes oil and gas) only add up to 3.8 percent? Extraction is Old West.