{"id":4095,"date":"2017-11-18T09:32:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T16:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=4095"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:31:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:31:24","slug":"4095","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=4095","title":{"rendered":"Former Public Lands Officials speak out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bearears.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4096\" src=\"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bearears.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"794\" height=\"690\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bearears.jpg 794w, https:\/\/sbbch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bearears-300x261.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sbbch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bearears-768x667.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px\" \/><\/a>Many visitors to U.S. national parks and monuments\u2014a record 331 million in 2016\u2014seek a hiatus, however fleeting, from the daily grind. But increasingly, they may find themselves face-to-face with some of the things they are trying to escape.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump Administration\u2019s quick-step public lands agenda for 2017 includes budget cuts, expanded resource extraction (mining, logging, drilling, and grazing), shrinking national monument boundaries, and a relaxation of restrictions on problematic activities like the use of plastic bottles.<\/p>\n<p>At Dinosaur National Monument, for example, the Bureau of Land Management plans to auction public land for oil and gas drilling. The drilling site is near the park\u2019s entrance road and will be visible from the visitor center. The BLM says it will take steps to minimize the impact, including light shields, noise mufflers, and \u201cplacement of exhaust systems to direct noise away from noise sensitive areas\u201d and \u201cavoiding unnecessary flaring of gas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Mike Murray, who worked as a national park administrator and ranger at Dinosaur National Monument for thirty-four years, calls the decision to auction drilling rights there \u201cindefensible.\u201d The monument\u2019s pitch-black night skies and silent soundscapes have been protected by the Park Service since Woodrow Wilson&#8217;s presidency, Murray says in an interview. Visitors, he notes, will now witness \u201coil rigs instead of a pristine landscape.\u201d And the Trump team\u2019s \u201ctotal priority\u201d on mining and drilling threatens other values, like \u201cprotecting parks for future generations and for wildlife.\u201d\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/progressive.org\/dispatches\/former-public-lands-officials-on-Trump-treams-agenda\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many visitors to U.S. national parks and monuments\u2014a record 331 million in 2016\u2014seek a hiatus, however fleeting, from the daily grind. But increasingly, they may find themselves face-to-face with some of the things they are trying to escape. The Trump Administration\u2019s quick-step public lands agenda for 2017 includes budget cuts, expanded resource extraction (mining, logging, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-campfire","category-current-events","category-public-lands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4099,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095\/revisions\/4099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}