Mongolian Skulls at Stone Macaw Site

Exploring Rock Art in SE Utah

Mongolian Skulls

We spent a terrific 2 and 1/2 days with Bob and Sue Ludtke in the Bluff and Blanding areas of SE Utah. Bob and Sue were excellent hosts, with good knowledge of and experience in the area coupled with great patience. Unfortunately, we had to depart before the visits were finished, so we headed to Cortez. Along the way to Cortez, we visited the Stone Macaw panel in Montezuma Canyon (note the two macaws in the top right of the photo). A group of three professionals were recording the sunlight/shadow interactions on the panel, taking a photograph every 10 seconds, with the intention of producing a 20-second video. They became extremely excited as they watched and predicted the movement and the timing of the movement. Finally the shadow touched the top ring of the smaller spiral, and they were almost overwhelmed. However the highlight of this visit was that one of URARA's intrepid explorers, Wisconsin Jeff Allen, a distant cousin of the lesser known Indiana Jones, located 4 Mongolian skulls, one each of red, blue, green, and crystal color. One of the attached photos shows Wisconsin Allen with the red skull. Remember Indiana Jones took a full two hours of movie time to find one crystal skull and Wisconsin Allen found four skulls in less than 30 minutes. We will be doing more research on the Mongolian skulls, but we have been told that China is building a huge dam, and the excavation for the dam is yielding these skulls. The skulls are being sold to help finance the dam. An international connection for URARA.

Canyon de Chelly

A very nice article about the site in Northeast Arizona. Enjoy.

1200 year old home site found in the Kanab area

Look for the full report in about two years.

If you need a clean copy advise us at exploringrockart@gmail.com or review the website http://www.exploringrockart.com/.

BLM actions - Vernal office

Some acreage may be closed to drilling? We will see how long this lasts.

If you need a clean copy please advise us at exploringrockart@gmail.com or review the website at http://www.exploringrockart.com/.

BLM actions - Monticello, Utah office

More bad news on protection of Cultural Resources, changing an area which needs protection on major Cultural Resources sites to an area labelled "special recreation-management areas".

Not a good idea and impossible for citizens interested in Cultural Resources to support. When will the balance swing back? After all the Rock Art has been damaged or destroyed?

If you need a cleaner copy email me at exploringrockart@gmail.com or review the website www.exploringrockart.com.

Lawsuit to Protect Utah Rok Art in Nine Mile Canyon

Eco groups sue to stop drilling in Nine Mile Canyon
By Patty HenetzThe Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 08/07/2008 12:52:53 PM MDT



Posted: 12:39 PM- Three conservation groups are suing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in a bid to halt gas drilling in eastern Utah's scenic Nine Mile Canyon. The Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and The Wilderness Society filed the federal lawsuit this week in Salt Lake City, alleging the BLM acted illegally when it approved Bill Barrett Corp.'s request to drill 25 new natural-gas wells on the West Tavaputs Plateau. The lawsuit argues the BLM's Price field office failed to properly analyze the harm big-rig traffic is doing to ancient Puebloan rock art and other artifacts, failed to include the public in its decision and didn't consult Indian tribes before the action, as mandated by environmental-protection law. The Price field office used a loophole in the 2005 Energy Policy Act that says one broad environmental-impact statement on one drilling application can serve for all subsequent requests. In February, Brad Higdon, planning and environmental coordinator in the BLM's Price field office, said that before drilling can begin, each well location, pipeline and road will get a separate evaluation based on "ground truth" culled from on-site surveys involving biologists, archaeologists and other resource specialists. "Nine Mile Canyon is an unusual place full of rock art, prehistoric ruins and historic
reminders of Utah's military, farming and ranching history," said Pam Miller, chairwoman of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition's board of directors. "By using a loophole to issue drilling permits, BLM is avoiding considering the importance of these resources and the impacts of industrial development on our past." Mike Stiewig, the Price field office associate director, also named in the lawsuit, wasn't immediately available Thursday for comment. With about 100 wells already developed, big rigs serving the Denver-based Bill Barrett's gas fields make hundreds of trips up and down the steep, narrow dirt road. Chemicals used to suppress dust, strong enough to corrode concrete, have stuck to rock-art panels. The fugitive dust further degrades air quality and affects water quality, riparian areas and visibility, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants BLM to study further. phenetz@sltrib.com

Lawsuit on Protection of Nine Mile Canyon Rock Art

News Release

BLM’s Approval of 25 Natural Gas Wells in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon Region Sparks LawsuitGroups challenge BLM’s illegal “act first, think later” practice



SALT LAKE CITY (August 7, 2008) – A coalition of historic preservation and conservation groups yesterday challenged a recent spate of decisions issued by the Bureau of Land Management to fast-track natural gas drilling in Utah’s remarkable Nine Mile Canyon region. BLM’s decisions approved Bill Barrett Corporation’s requests to drill 25 new natural gas wells without any analysis or consideration of the impacts that drilling and maintaining those wells will have to the area’s unique rock art and renowned collection of cultural sites. BLM approved these 25 new wells under a loophole in the Republican-controlled Congress’s Energy Policy Act of 2005.
“Nine Mile Canyon is an unusual place full of rock art, prehistoric ruins, and historic reminders of Utah's military, farming, and ranching history,” said Pam Miller, chair of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition’s board of directors. “By using a loophole to issue drilling permits, BLM is avoiding considering the importance of these resources and the impacts of industrial development on our past.”
Nine Mile Canyon has been increasingly threatened by unchecked drilling and development activities that threaten the area’s integrity. The approval of these 25 wells is in addition to the proposed drilling of more than 800 new natural gas wells by Bill Barrett Corporation in the “West Tavaputs natural gas full field development project,” which is being planned for archaeologically rich West Tavaputs plateau in the northeast portion of Carbon County.
“The Bill Barrett Corporation announced on Monday another record quarter of profits and has many other non-controversial areas that it could target for drilling, but it has chosen to focus on an area that is truly one of the West’s ancient treasures,” says Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “BLM is also complicit because the agency has chosen to ignore environmental safeguards, which could result in irreversible damage to the cultural artifacts of the Nine Mile Canyon region.”
In addition, the West Tavaputs project has been widely and universally panned. The BLM received more than 53,000 comments in opposition to the project from citizens across the country, and also received letters criticizing the project from the state of Utah, the Hopi Tribe, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. The Environmental Protection Agency rated the draft environmental impact statement as “inadequate” and required BLM to prepare a supplemental analysis for public review to consider impacts to air quality. Copies of these comment letters are available on-line at www.suwa.org/WestTavaputs.
The lawsuit filed yesterday asserts that BLM’s rapid approval of 25 new natural gas wells violated federal laws that require the agency to “think first, then act.” The National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act require BLM to analyze the full range of environmental impacts caused by the natural gas drilling and development before it gives the green light to new activities. By approving these activities under loopholes known as “statutory categorical exclusions” BLM is not considering these potentially significant impacts.
“Over the past seven years, as the administration has relentlessly pushed oil and gas projects into iconic Western landscapes, BLM has repeatedly and embarrassingly been forced to rescind ill-considered leasing decisions,” said Suzanne Jones, regional director of The Wilderness Society’s Central Rockies Office. “When it comes to BLM’s illegal practice of acting before thinking, the West Tavaputs project is certainly one of the most egregious examples.”
The groups participating in the legal challenge do not oppose drilling on public lands—and indeed do not challenge the vast majority of leasing and development proposed for BLM lands—but are concerned about the damage to important public values when drilling is located in proposed wilderness or areas with rich cultural resources such as Nine Mile Canyon, and/or adequate safeguards are not required to ensure that the impacts of drilling are minimized on these other important public land uses.
Background on West Tavaputs Full Field Development Project
The West Tavaputs project is by far the largest of several Barrett projects that are rapidly changing the face of the Nine Mile Canyon region, an area that the state of Utah describes in its website as an “outdoor museum” that “should be shown the respect due to one of the West’s ancient treasures.” According to the BLM’s website, the Nine Mile Canyon region contains the “the greatest concentration of rock art sites in the U.S.A.” More than 1,000 of these sites have been identified, along with centuries-old standing structures such as cliff dwellings and pit houses.
The West Tavaputs project would industrialize an area that has received global recognition for its cultural resources and would permanently alter its unspoiled and wild nature. The proposed drilling would effectively eliminate large swaths of the Jack Canyon and Desolation Canyon BLM wilderness study areas, as well as two adjacent areas that BLM recognizes as having wilderness character. Under BLM and Bill Barrett Corp.’s “preferred” alternative, 230 wells – more than a quarter of the total number of project wells – would be drilled in these wild areas. The Desolation Canyon portion of the Green River, one of the West’s most iconic and remote stretches of river, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1969. Because of that designation, the BLM is required to manage the canyon to retain its remote and natural setting.
The West Tavaputs project “preferred alternative” would authorize approximately 800 new natural gas wells over a 20 year period over a 137,000 acre project area in a largely remote and wild corner of east-central Utah. Though the project area has seen limited oil and gas drilling over the past 50 years, the level of development proposed by Bill Barrett Corp. would exponentially exceed the number of wells previously drilled in the area. The vast majority of the project is located on public lands managed on behalf of all Americans by the BLM.
Photographs of the types of cultural resources at risk from the West Tavaputs project can be viewed at SUWA’s website. Also available are electronic copies of comments submitted by various groups and organizations

Protection Efforts on Two Major Utah Rock Art Sites

COALITION TO PRESERVE ROCK ART

Jon Gum 1234 West Red Butte Washington, UT 84780

435-627-1086 exploringrockart@gmail.com

August 8, 2008


This is just a short note to keep you informed of the status of potential damaging actions to two extremely important Utah Rock Art sites.

These sites have been lighted in Southwest Utah as very important issues regarding our preservation efforts.

Regarding Parowan Gap, the following was printed in the URARA’s August Vestiges. As you might guess, we must work hard to gain momentum. From the start, most of us were surprised that the government actions were in process, and yet they did not provide sufficient time to present any meaningful arguments to the actions. Any help or advice would be appreciated, since we will probably fail if we do not receive your support and your communications with the BLM.

Parowan Gap Developments
Jon Gum, Coalition to Preserve Rock Art, http://www.exploringrockart.com/

Can anybody perform miracles? We might need some help.

Citizens were given until June 30, 2008 to answer the EA on oil and gas leasing and potential drilling around The Parowan Gap area, west of Cedar City. We want to protect the Parowan Gap from damage and prevent a Nine-Mile Canyon debacle from occurring in SW Utah.

On July 2, 2008, the public notification of parcels for lease was issued. The government did not give the input from concerned citizens (several letters went in from Coalition to Preserve Rock Art members) a careful reading or perform a thorough management review of the comments received. Some person might have read them, but to my knowledge, they were not categorized and submitted to staff for a serious review. Therefore, we lost to the bureaucracy and the lack of concern regarding cultural resources. In the Parowan Gap case, they gave the interested citizens almost 30 days to respond, noted their responses, and then did what they set out to do, regardless of the input received. We are fortunate that the BLM was stopped at Parowan Gap in January 2007, since it gave us another 18 months to enjoy these cultural resources before the BLM dictated that Parowan Gap would be inflicted with the “Nine-Mile Canyon disease”.
We will request a meeting with the BLM staff in Cedar City. We are also checking the Native American tribes to see if they want a coordinated effort in responding. I hope that other concerned organizations will be involved.

Regarding Nine-Mile Canyon, two articles are attached that discuss a recent lawsuit filed (yesterday) attempting to stop the drilling of 25 wells on which adequate data has not been collected and potential damage to Cultural Resource sites could occur.
Throughout the 2008 RMP process, the failure of BLM to understand in detail the public areas that BLM manages has been highlighted. Anybody who wants to understand the process and the rebuttals offered to concerned citizen and organization RMP responses should request a copy of the CD “Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement dated August 2008. Many decisions are being made without serious study and without knowledge of the areas being managed. In most cases, you (the citizens who hike, who explore, and spend time in the wilderness areas) are much more informed that the BLM personnel. That’s unfortunate, since BLM should learn from those who have experienced the “land”. Without that knowledge base, they will continue to make irrational decisions.

Please review the two attachments. Several organizations are working together to impact a recent BLM decision that could effect some of our Cultural Resources and their efforts should be supported.

Thanks, next time I will catch up on some other activities in SW Utah,

Jon

Ohio River Petroglyph Rock

Grand jury indicts Ironton man over Indian Head Rock
Jun 19, 2008 @ 09:10 PM
By DAVID E. MALLOY The Herald-Dispatch

GREENUP, Ky. -- The battle between Ohio and Kentucky over the Indian Head Rock took a more serious twist Thursday when a Greenup County grand jury indicted an Ironton man on a felony charge of removing an antiquity.
The charge carries a possible prison sentence of from one to five years upon conviction.
Steve Shaffer, an Ironton resident, spent three years diving in the Ohio River for the eight-ton sandstone rock before finding it last summer in 16 feet of water and bringing it out of the river last September.
"I'm quietly amazed," Shaffer said Thursday at the charge against him. "I guess they consider me the ring leader. There was no criminal intent. This is just bizarre."
Shaffer and some divers from the Huntington area would dive in the Ohio River looking for the rock that has been submerged since 1920.
"We turned it over to the city of Portsmouth," he said.
The rock currently is stored in a city of Portsmouth garage. "A number of people are coming to see it."
The state of Kentucky wants to put the rock back in the river, Shaffer said. "It's ludicrous."
Greenup Commonwealth's Attorney Clifford Duvall told The Associated Press the case is not about the fate of the rock, but whether it was removed without a proper permit.
"What's important is that all of these things be protected and that the law of Kentucky be observed," he said.
Ohio State Rep. Todd Book, D-McDermott, said the indictment "seems a bit out of control."
The city of Portsmouth was going to remove the rock in 1908, he said.
"For them to do this, I don't know," Book said. "They must have too much time on their hands. I hate to see it go down this path. There's a fun way to resolve this, but they haven't chosen to do that."
"This rock tells stories about the people who settled this land, those who lived here, worked here and left their legacies for future generations to uphold," Book had said earlier. "We want to preserve history; the people fighting this in Kentucky just want to return the rock to its watery grave at the bottom of the Ohio River. This is too important a part of Portsmouth's history to allow that to happen."
Book has proposed having an annual competition between Kentucky and Ohio residents to determine who would get to display the rock for a year. He said there could be a rafting competition, a game of rock, paper, scissors, a tug of war or something along those lines on an annual basis.
The border battle over the rock has garnered national media attention in the New York Times and the "CBS Evening News." Officials in Frankfort have asked for the rock to be returned while officials in Columbus have met to ask Kentucky to relinquish its claim to the rock. The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1800s ruled that the Ohio River belongs to Kentucky up to the low water mark on the Ohio side in 1792. A series of dams has raised the river level over the years.
Shaffer admits the rock was closer to the Kentucky shore than the Ohio shore.
"It was lost ... forgotten," he said. "It was a lost piece of history. We wanted to solve the mystery. People from Portsmouth would go over and carve their names or initials on the rock. There are stories about it in the Portsmouth paper."
The rock also has a crude face that some claim is a petroglyph carved by an unknown American Indian. It was registered as a protected archeological object with Kentucky state government in 1986, according to The Associated Press.
Shaffer said an expert called in by the state of Kentucky, Dr. Fred Coy Jr. of Louisville, believes the carving isn't native American.
"He believes it was carved with metal tools," Shaffer said. "It's just not native American, it's graffiti. The names (on the rock) are from Portsmouth people."

An Interesting Archaeology Story

Rock with Petroglyphs possibly illegally removed. Rock was underwater when removed. Full size copy at www.exploringrockart.com.

Coalition to Preserve Rock Art March 19, 2008

COALITION TO PRESERVE ROCK ART

Jon Gum 1234 West Red Butte Washington, UT 84780

435-627-1086 preserverockart@gmail.com


The Coalition Progress Report March 19, 2008

The progress of the Coalition to Preserve Rock Art (CPRA) is now evident. The first key was to get the word out of our goals and objectives, then to follow with more information supporting the Awareness concept and more material to aid in the Education area. We then need to couple this with Actions or Implementation to see progress toward achieving the objectives.

CPRA’s membership is now well over 100 and we are now international with a new member from Germany. We are not limited to SW Utah, since our members have residences in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Moab, and other communities. Membership growth is presently due to the Internet (www.exploringrockart.com), to presentations such as that at the St. George Newcomer’s Club (over 15 new members), and to the Rock Art Class conducted by Boma and Kat Johnson (about 15 new members). Our expectations are that the critical mass we need is about 200 members so we will continue to contact interested citizens in Utah as well as work with Internet users and other friends of Rock Art.

Specifically:

We continue to support URARA and other organizations interested in Preservation by responding to the BLM Resource Management Plans in Utah. So far we have responded on Moab, Kanab, Richfield, Monticello, Price, and Vernal.

BLM has announced the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the West Tavaputs Plateau Natural Gas Full Field Development Plan. This could mean the drilling of up to 807 new natural gas wells in the Nine-Mile Canyon area. The Coalition will respond to the EIS (due May 1, 2008) and we hope to attend at least one Public Information Open House in the Price area if the BLM holds them as indicated. We urge all of our members to be active in responding to this EIS. Let me know if you want to be involved in responding to the EIS. Nine-Mile Canyon is a very important series of sites.

One of our favorite local sites is Telegraph Hill. The city of St. George now informs us that the entire development is platted out and that they cannot have a real impact in establishing a park or private area. We still intend to ask for a meeting with the developer and will ask that the city join us. We are not giving up yet but it is private property and we are unlikely to have a major success.

The difficulty in determining a way to preserve this site has resulted in discussions with a CPRA member who believes that promoting “Green Developers”, those who intend to preserve archaeology assets located on private property could be productive. We are going to try this or perhaps a similar approach that you might suggest. We intend to meet with a St. George developer who has preserved a pithouse area, might go to Kanab to meet with a developer, might meet with one in Moab, and will extract information from appropriate Press Releases that we can find. Our Green Developer program will endorse positive actions of developers and will include comments from a Real Estate Agent (a CPRA member) who firmly believes that the preservation of archaeology assets adds value to residential property. We want your thoughts on this program because if we embark on it, we will be seeking publicity outlets in all our represented communities. Our intention is to then show positive results to developers such as the one on Telegraph Hill and try to get a change in the direction in which they intend to go. We also seek your ideas regarding this approach. Maybe a “Green Developer” Plaque or a Certificate with a specially designed emblem? Any good designers? The results in Kanab, in Orem, and in Moab where residential developers have taken steps to preserve Rock Art seem to be positive. We need to follow that pattern of success perhaps with an added feature.

We have another residential development in St. George where we need to address preservation. The site known as South Airport Hill, Malibu Cleaners, or Black Ridge reportedly has development on the North end of the Rock Art area that is potentially encroaching. The Rock Art is on the slope and the development is apparently at the top of the hill. More information will be coming when we have an opportunity to look at the potential issues.

The City of St. George is still evaluating the Temple Quarry Trail where the Trail comes close to a couple of boulders with Rock Art. We are still waiting for information from St. George.

We believe that we have positive results to report on Well Site #4 south of Gunlock. BLM has advised Dixie Archaeology Society (DAS) that they will install barriers and signs to prevent traffic (vehicular) and hopefully suppress foot traffic on the horizontal panels. More on this next month. If true, a very positive accomplishment.

DAS now plans the first road cleanup project in April of 2008. We were given a 2-mile section of St. George roadway to clean up 3 times a year. We accepted this project to get name recognition and to do something good for the community. St. George, in its own way, changed the name on the sign to St. George Archaeology Society from Dixie Archaeology Society - that must be the political correct way at the moment. Not exactly the name recognition we sought, but….

In November 2007, Dixie Weekly News published an article that gave very specific directions to Cave Valley, a well known and recognized sacred site between Virgin and Kolob Reservoir. In early March, CPRA hand delivered two letters to Dixie Weekly News protesting the precise public disclosure, one signed by 20+ members of CPRA and another signed by 20+ members of DAS. The editor in the St. George office understood our concern and said our letters would be forwarded to Salt Lake City. We intend to go one step further and contact the Archaeologist at Zion to see if they wouldn’t issue advisement to the magazine. Dixie Weekly News previously ran two very favorable articles on our preservation efforts and we hope to work with them again on publicity.

In December 2007, Today in Dixie published an article giving specific directions to Shaman’s Gallery, a lesser known site between Colorado City and the Grand Canyon. In early March, CPRA hand delivered two letters to Today in Dixie protesting the disclosure of location, one signed by 20+ members of CPRA and another signed by 20+ members of DAS. The Acting Editor took issue with our comments, stated that she knows her readers and they need to be informed of sites like these to visit and enjoy, and indicated that she will continue to inform them completely. She clearly stated that her readership wouldn’t damage such a site. Comments as to her “complete” knowledge of her readership (no author knows all her readers and all the reader’s acquaintances and she rejected the suggested approach that less specific directions might be appropriate) were met with continued discussion. I believe that the site is located on BLM property and intend to pursue additional comments with BLM.

A site along the Virgin River close to Washington has received a lot of attention recently since the sole building (pioneer construction) has received damage and there is a reward for identifying the damagers. There is significant Rock Art close to this site. We have discussed with the “informal caretaker” of the site that their group might help us install signs to advise that the Rock Art needed to be protected. I will go first to the Zion National Park Archaeologist who has previously offered signage but must determine if the signs are purely for BLM property. Does anybody have any other ideas on how to obtain signs?

We have a presentation scheduled on March 28 at the Book Seller in St. George which should attract more members. We now need to advise the Rotary Club, Lion’s Club, Kiwanis Club, etc. that we have presentations and are willing to work with them. The presentation recently given is about 80% travelogue (for entertainment and awareness, and the initial approach to education) and about 20% concentrated on preservation. We want to also return to the format of a more concentrated Awareness and Education presentation format but we end up offering what our audience wants. And St. George residents want entertainment.

One of our longer term goals has been to have a city administration endorse and sponsor a Rock Art Day. We are formulating our plans to do this (in 2008) and should gain a lot of publicity to promote our efforts if we are successful.

The Coalition is researching the requirements to become a recognized non-profit organization and a 501.(c).3 organization. We feel that government approval will be needed to achieve our objectives and that a small amount of funding will be required to get the approval. We will be guided by administrative advice and assistance offered by a Board Member of URARA.

We keep moving forward, but, never as fast as we want, unfortunately. Thank you for your help and your support. It’s appreciated,

Jon Gum

Coalition to Preserve Rock Art Feb 10, 2008

COALITION TO PRESERVE ROCK ART

Jon Gum 1234 West Red Butte Washington, UT 84780

435-627-1086 preserverockart@gmail.com


The Coalition Progress Report February 10, 2008

The Coalition to Preserve Rock Art (CPRA) is now, I believe, making some progress. The first key is to get the word out of our interest. Then we need to follow through with more information supporting the Awareness concept and more material to aid in the Education area.

We then need to couple this with Actions or Implementation to see some progress toward achieving the objectives.

Specifically:

We continue to support URARA and other organizations interested in Preservation by responding to the BLM Resource Management Plans in Utah. So far we have responded on Moab, Kanab, Richfield, Monticello, Price, and Vernal. We should all give a lot of credit to URARA for their detailed analysis and thoughtful responses to the BLM. That effort is headed by Troy Scotter. If the BLM reads and listens, URARA and their associated organizations should have an impact.

BLM has announced the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the West Tavaputs Plateau Natural Gas Full Field Development Plan. This could mean the drilling of up to 807 new natural gas wells in the Nine-Mile Canyon area. The Coalition will respond to the EIS (due May 1, 2008) and will probably attend at least one Public Information Open House in the Price area if the BLM holds them as indicated. We urge all of our members to be active in responding to this EIS. Nine-Mile Canyon is a very important series of sites.

John Macumber arranged an on-site meeting with the St. George Park Planning Manager at Telegraph Hill, a site that we have watched for over a year now. We have really struggled to come up with a plan to Protect the Rock Art from residential development. There should be several future discussions and we hope that the City will take an active position with the developers on a solution such as signage and designated trails on the hillside – it may not be possible to save the Rock Art on horizontal surfaces at the top but the city will be checking that out. John has put us in touch with the right people, now we have to work the issues as the City allows us to. We were fortunate to have Pam and Quent Baker from Moab join us at the meeting and they offered some valuable ideas.

The City of St. George is also evaluating the Temple Quarry Trail where the Trail comes close to a couple of boulders with Rock Art. This area is presently BLM property, but the City will probably ask for the Coalition’s help in generating an acceptable RMP for the area and perhaps the City will have a very influential role in how the area is managed. We have indicated that we are willing to help out.

Dixie Archaeology Society (DAS) is staying in touch with the BLM on Gunlock Wellsite #4. It’s highly probable that the BLM will not take any action (my opinion), but will they allow DAS and CPRA to do something to prevent ATV and foot traffic on the site? Only time will tell.

DAS now plans the first road cleanup project in March of 2008. We were given a 2-mile section of St. George roadway to clean up 3 times a year. We accepted this project to get name recognition and to do something good for the community. St. George, in its own way, took it upon themselves to change the name on the sign to St. George Archaeology Society from Dixie Archaeology Society - that must be the political push at the moment. Not exactly the name recognition we sought, but….

There is probably more to report (for instance we have offered to help URARA distribute Rock Art Etiquette Brochures if they initiate that project), but let’s save those topics for next month or so.

The Coalition is researching what is needed to become a recognized non-profit organization and then a 501(c)3 organization. We feel that will be needed to achieve our objectives. Membership is progressing. We will be making a presentation on March 11 that will introduce us to many new potential members and will probably be making short comments in front of supportive groups soon that should also add to membership.

So we are moving ahead. Never as fast as we want, but I think progress is upon us and actual accomplishments are just around the corner.

Jon Gum