Good
Rick Smith
Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal
Thursday, October 25, 2018 8:56 PM
Man sentenced for role in vandalism at Devils Hole pupfish site
By Henry Brean / Las Vegas Review-Journal
An Indian Springs man has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison for breaking into a National Park Service site in Nye County and disturbing the only home for one of the world’s rarest types of fish.
Trenton Sargent, 28, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release, according to an announcement Thursday by the park service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In July, Sargent pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to violating the Endangered Species Act for his role in the 2016 break-in at Devils Hole, a water-filled cavern 90 miles west of Las Vegas.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of federal property and one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.
According to federal prosecutors, Sargent rammed his ATV into the gate at Devils Hole and entered the protected site, where he and two other men shot up signs, locks, scientific sensors and parts of the surveillance system. Then Sargent went into the water, smashing in the process the eggs and larvae of the critically endangered Devils Hole pupfish at the peak of its spawning season.
The park service found beer cans and vomit on the site, as well as a pair of boxer shorts in the water at Devils Hole.
Edgar Reyes, 37, of North Las Vegas and Steven Schwinkendorf, 31, of Pahrump previously pleaded guilty to destruction of government property and violation of the Endangered Species Act. Each was sentenced to one year of probation.
The three men were caught on camera and identified by investigators from the park service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
The Devils Hole pupfish has been under federal protection since 1967, and millions of dollars have been spent on efforts to study and preserve it.
Its population peaked at 544 in 1990 and bottomed out at 32 in the spring of 2013. Researchers counted 187 of the inch-long, neon-blue fish during a population survey late last month, the highest autumn total in 15 years.
The lifespan of a typical Devils Hole pupfish is about a year, roughly the length of Sargent’s prison sentence.
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
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Rick Smith
Bismarck (ND) Tribune
Sunday, November 4, 2018
National Park maintenance bill gaining momentum
JESSICA HOLDMAN Bismarck Tribune
Rather than a valued icon of history, Peaceful Valley Ranch in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit had become an exhibit of the National Park System's aging infrastructure — a piece of the state's lore North Dakotans would hate to lose.
“It’s an iconic building and campus area,” said Park Superintendent Wendy Ross. “People love that old ranch feeling they get when they go into the South Unit.”
The ranch dates back to the former president Roosevelt’s time in North Dakota. And the dude ranch that once operated there was one of the first tourist attractions in the area. But lack of funding left the buildings deteriorating with peeling lead paint, roofs and siding in need of replacement. There's also a lack of accessibility for disabled visitors.
The National Park System spent more than $650 million on maintenance projects in Fiscal Year 2017, but the backlog, since 2010, still stands from $11 billion to $12 billion. The latest numbers reveal $11.6 billion in deferred maintenance in parks nationwide.
It took three years to put the project in line this past year for $3 million of the $4.3 million needed for its rehabilitation.
But urgency is mounting to pass legislation that could give the nation’s parks another source of money.
The Senate’s Restore Our Parks Act and accompanying House legislation would establish the five-year National Park Service Legacy Restoration Fund, starting in Fiscal Year 2019, using unappropriated revenues from energy development on federal lands. Annual revenue to the fund would be capped at $1.3 billion.
The legislation was passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is a member, in early October.
“We’re hoping to get it passed (by the full Senate) in the lame duck,” Hoeven said. “We’ve got pretty good momentum.”
While Hoeven pointed to concerns about getting the legislation through both houses and to the president in the short time between elections and Christmas, heightened attention is being paid to this initiative and reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund program, which could result in a year-end federal lands legislation package.
“Everyone agrees that it’s a real need and a legitimate issue and the longer we wait the more it’s going to cost,” Hoeven said of deferred maintenance.
The effort also enjoys Trump administration support, with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke rallying behind it.
The next project on Ross’ wish list at Theodore Roosevelt National Park is repair of the River Bend Overlook, a Civilian Conservation Corps-era structure in the North Unit overlooking the Little Missouri River. The rough-stone structure requires rocks to be reset and mortar stabilized.
If the legislation is passed, 65 percent of the $1.3 billion annually would go to repair historic structures, such as the overlook, as well as visitor facilities, trails, water utility systems and other non-transportation-related assets.
Because Theodore Roosevelt National Park's roads are built on an erosive landscape, the state of the infrastructure is always on Ross' mind. For example, there's a large landslide in the North Unit's Cedar Canyon.
“It's very difficult to predict when a road will fail or need extensive repairs,” she said of the roads that make up 60 percent of the park's $49.3 million in deferred maintenance.
North Dakota mirrors the nation in this trend. Paved roads and structures make up $5.9 billion of system-wide deferred maintenance in 2017. Facilities are looking at $5.707 billion in needed expenditures. But roads spending will only account for 35 percent of the proposed fund.
Critics of the legislation also have said it relies too heavily on future energy revenues, rather than guaranteed funding.
But members of such groups as the National Parks Conservation Association say, based on past revenues, they have a high degree of confidence in the funding coming through. John Garder, the organization's senior director of budget and appropriations, said the Congressional Budget Office scores also have reaffirmed this.
"The Land and Water Conservation Fund and deferred maintenance both are incredibly important issues and have strong bipartisan support," Garder said. "With so many people pushing for it, leadership has to recognize it's something they really should move on. It would be a shame to have to start all over in the next Congress."
As national parks see increased recognition, and therefore more visitation, maintaining the infrastructure becomes paramount, said NPS' Midwest spokeswoman Alex Picavet.
More visitors means more recreation fees generated at the entrance of National Park System attractions. But more visitors also mean more strain to resources, Ross said.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park's visitation was up 2 percent over last year to 754,000 people, according to Ross. Three years ago it was at 580,000.
"It has leveled off a bit, but now we're in a totally different kind of class," she said of visitor numbers holding steady above 700,000.
Nearly $1 million was generated in entrance fees at North Dakota's lone national park last year, with $800,000 returned to the park and the rest going into a national pot of maintenance money. Of the $800,000, 55 percent went to deferred maintenance and the rest went to direct visitor benefits, Ross said
Rick Smith
Missoulian (Missoula, MT)
Thursday, November 1, 2018
FWS doesn't do enough to stop lynx trapping, judge rules
ROB CHANEY rch...@missoulian.com
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must do more to keep Canada lynx out of bobcat traps, a federal court judge has ruled.
While bobcats may be trapped, lynx have protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit by WildEarth Guardians and Center for Biological Diversity accused the agency of failing to follow the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and not doing enough to stop bobcat trappers from taking the wrong animal. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy found the FWS rules were “both overbroad and underinclusive.”
“Additionally, this amorphous condition is assessed by untrained trappers, not an experienced service wildlife biologist whose interpretation would be due deference,” Molloy wrote. “The service’s interpretation and use of the term ‘injury’ in the context of this case is arbitrary and capricious and not based on the best available science.”
That’s a problem because FWS must take extra measures to protect lynx if more than two are killed or injured by trapping in a single year. Molloy found the agency’s dependence on trappers to self-report accidental capture of lynx wasn’t enough to ensure the predatory cat was getting protection.
Lawyers for the Montana Trappers Association and Fur Information Council of America argued that FWS had done a good job of evaluating trapping seasons, methods and historical catch records when it determined its regulations were sufficient to protect lynx. Molloy countered that analysis was published in a brochure that no one was required to read, which failed to meet the “reasonable and prudent” protections requirement in the Endangered Species Act.
Canada lynx are similar in size to bobcats, with mature males of both species weighing about 22 pounds. Bobcats are much more common and have distinctly spotted coats, while lynx are grayer in color and have faint spotting. A 2010 population estimate assumed between 350 and 500 lynx inhabited remote bits of western Montana, while bobcats prowled the entire state and more than 1,400 were trapped in the same year.
The Fish and Wildlife Service authorized export of nearly 60,000 bobcat pelts from the United States to other countries in 2014, according to records compiled on the CITES Trade Database.
“We are pleased the Service must now take a hard look at imposing conditions that truly protect lynx from trapping, which may include common-sense approaches like trap check intervals and trap size limits,” said Sarah McMillan, conservation director for WildEarth Guardians. “The service’s primary responsibility is to conserve imperiled species like lynx, not facilitate cruel trapping.”
Rick Smith
Salt Lake (UT) Tribune
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Court gives environmentalists a victory, affirms deal reached with feds to revise land plans
By Brian Maffly bma...@sltrib.com
A federal appeals court has blocked Utah’s efforts to unravel the detente the Bureau of Land Management and motorized users reached with environmentalists over travel on thousands of miles of routes in southern Utah.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and nine other groups had negotiated a deal with the BLM last year requiring the land agency to revise resource-management plans after a lower court judge concluded the BLM failed to adequately document cultural resources that could be damaged by off-highway vehicles.
The state, several counties and some energy companies argued the settlement illegally shackled the new Trump administration to guidelines protecting wilderness characteristics of public lands covered by the plans, which had authorized 20,000 miles of motorized routes across 6 million acres.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and handed down a decision Wednesday affirming the hard-fought settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball, resolving eight years of litigation.
“Many of Utah’s concerns are anticipatory, or are not within the purview of the Settlement Agreement. For example, there are no final travel management plans,” Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote for the three-judge panel that heard the case. “Nothing in the Settlement Agreement requires BLM to protect wilderness characteristics when developing a [travel management plan]. Instead, the Settlement Agreement lays out criteria for BLM to consider as it develops [plans] in a complex regulatory scheme.”
Those criteria “increase exponentially burdens on the state,” Assistant Utah Attorney General David Halverson said in Sept. 25 oral arguments. He alleged the settlement enabled “certain special interests” to veto routes the counties may want included in the travel plans.
“You have to be wary of any options that could impair wilderness," he argued. “The BLM’s fatigue won out over good sense, and the settlement they agreed to was against public policy and is also unlawful.”
At the hearing, Briscoe noted, the agreement states that it would not limit the BLM’s ability to implement new regulations and grants the agency broad discretion.
“It’s not binding, it’s not limiting,” Briscoe said. “The parties may agree to modify the settlement. This is a very spongy settlement agreement. I’m not really certain what it really does because of this disclaimer."
A spokeswoman for Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said Thursday the office is reviewing the decision and considering its options.
Environmentalists said the resource-management plans, covering lands overseen by the BLM’s Moab, Vernal, Price, Richfield, Kanab and Monticello field offices, locked in pro-drilling and pro-motorized-access policies as President George W. Bush was leaving office in 2008. The settlement deal sets an eight-year time frame for evaluating the routes while providing new criteria for deciding whether they should remain open to motorized use or modified to minimize impacts.
“SUWA and its allies have already put hundreds of hours into field work for the first three [retooled] plans to be released in 2019 and 2020, located throughout the state and home to remarkable wilderness-caliber landscapes, including Labyrinth Canyon, the Henry Mountains, and public lands adjacent to Dinosaur National Monument,” said Stephen Bloch, SUWA’s legal director.
As part of the settlement, the SUWA-led coalition also agreed to drop challenges to oil and gas leases sold in 2014, covering 70,000 acres, mostly in eastern Utah’s Uinta Basin. The federal government agreed to reimburse $400,000 of the groups' legal costs.
Rick Smith
Dickinson (ND) Press
Monday, November 12, 2018
Environmental groups appeal order on refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park
By Amy Dalrymple / Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK -- The Dakota Resource Council and the Environmental Law & Policy Center have filed an appeal of the decision by the North Dakota Public Service Commission to dismiss their complaint against Meridian Energy.
The groups allege that Meridian Energy is trying to circumvent state law by not applying for a Public Service Commission permit for the Davis Refinery.
Commissioners unanimously dismissed the complaint during an Oct. 10 meeting after receiving a recommendation from an administrative law judge.
Commissioners said they don’t have jurisdiction over the project because Meridian Energy has said it has no plans to expand beyond a capacity of 49,500 barrels of oil per day. By law, the commission reviews refineries that process 50,000 barrels or more per day.
In a notice of appeal filed Friday in Burleigh County District Court, the environmental groups argue that the Public Service Commission failed to provide the groups a fair hearing as required by the Administrative Agencies Practice Act.
The appeal seeks to reverse the dismissal of the complaint and remand the case back to the commission for further proceedings.
In addition to a hearing, the groups are seeking evidence from Meridian about the planned capacity of the refinery, which will be less than 3 miles from the national park boundary.
The groups point to public statements Meridian Energy made about constructing a refinery to process 55,000 barrels per day and allege the company changed its story to 49,500 barrels to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
Meridian has begun excavation and earthwork at the refinery site near Belfield. Company CEO William Prentice said in an affidavit the company has no plans to expand beyond 49,500 barrels per day.
Public Service Commission Chairman Randy Christmann said Monday he was aware of the appeal but hadn’t had a chance to read it.
“I fully intend to defend the position the commission took. It was the right one,” Christmann said. “This facility that’s being proposed does not fall under our jurisdiction.”
Rick Smith
Monitor (McAllen, TX)
Monday, November 12, 2018
Preserving history: Battlefield monument moving to Palo Alto
RICK KELLY | STAFF WRITER
This monument to troops who fought in the Mexican-American War battle at Resaca de la Palma in 1846 will be moved to the nearby Palo Alto battlefield site. The Brownsville Herald
BROWNSVILLE — New home, same history.
A monument to American troops who fought at Resaca de la Palma on May 9, 1846, is about to be removed and re-installed at the Palo Alto Historical National Battlefield Park about five miles north on Paredes Line Road.
The four-foot-tall granite monument was put in place by the Lt. Thomas Barlow Chapter of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate one of the battles in what is now Brownsville during the Mexican-American War. It was placed along Paredes Line Road at the front of the Resaca de la Palma Battlefield in 1931.
Like most of the area, the monument’s site has been overtaken by the City of Brownsville’s growth. A tiny turnout along hectic Paredes Line Road allowed brave motorists to pull over and view the four-foot piece of granite with its carved inscription.
The monument already has been removed to a safer distance at Resaca de Palma, and is now about 200 feet away from the road. A public dedication ceremony will be held at the new Palo Alto site with park officials and DAR officials on Feb. 2.
“The Daughters had come to us, and it wasn’t that there was a problem there, but the biggest issue was a safety issue,” said Rolando Garza, archeologist/chief of resource management at Palo Alto battlefield park. “Paredes Line traffic has increased like everywhere.
“It wasn’t very visible, and with all the traffic, it wasn’t safe for people to pull over and see that,” he added.
The Resaca de la Palma Battlefield unit is a bare-bones historical site, with restrooms, a walking trail, interpretive waysides and a picnic area. Gates are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and entry is free.
The site was recently put under the umbrella of the Palo Alto Historical National Battlefield Park, which is about five miles north on Paredes Line Road. The Battle of Palo Alto was fought on May 8, one day before the fight at Resaca de la Palma.
Garza said National Park Service officials are grateful to the DAR for offering to move the monument to the Palo Alto site. He said it really isn’t clear just where the Battle of Resaca de Palma actually occurred, but the granite monolith will remain in proximity to what is believed to be the general battle area.
“Now we will have it inside the park and it’s a much safer environment for people and it fits with us commemorating and interpreting the site of Resaca de la Palma,” Garza said.
The monument push at Resaca de la Palma and other Mexican-American War battle sites began in 1914.
Gen. James Parker, who headed the Brownsville Military District, returned from Fort Houston with four aging pre-Civil War siege guns intending to mark sites of major battles of the Mexican-American War.
According to records in the archives of the Lt. Thomas Barlow Chapter of the NSDAR, the effort was attributed to the efforts of Franklin C. Pierce of Brownsville.
One cannon was placed in 1916 on Galveston Ranch on U.S. 281 at the site of Thornton Skirmish, the first recognized engagement of the Mexican-American War, DAR archives show. The cannon and a commemorative plaque remain in place.
Another cannon was placed within the breastworks of the old earthen Fort Brown erected by Gen. Zachary Taylor in April 1846.
The other two cannon originally identified the sites of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. The cannon replaced marble slabs which had marked the sites for many years.
Rick Smith
Washington Post
Friday, November 16, 2018
Bill requiring body, in-car cameras for federal uniformed officers is introduced, sparked by D.C.-area police shooting
By Tom Jackman
Two Washington-area members of Congress introduced a bill Friday requiring all uniformed federal police officers to wear body cameras and all federal patrol vehicles to be equipped with in-car cameras.
Federal police officers aren’t currently equipped with such cameras, and the U.S. Park Police did not record an incident last year in which two of its officers shot and killed Bijan Ghaisar, an unarmed motorist in Fairfax County who had fled from a traffic stop. Park Police have refused to discuss the shooting in the year since the Nov. 17, 2017, incident, and the names of the officers involved have not been released.
A Fairfax County police officer who followed the Park Police pursuit of Ghaisar on the George Washington Memorial Parkway recorded the episode on his in-car camera, and Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. released an edited version of the video in January, over federal investigators' objections.
The bill proposed by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) states that footage from federal police body cameras “may not be withheld from the public on the basis that it is an investigatory record or was compiled for law enforcement purposes” in cases where officers are the subject of the investigation.
“Federal police are late in requiring body cameras and dashboard cameras, which help ensure transparency, protect the public and officers alike and hold bad actors accountable,” Norton said in a news release. “The federal government should follow the lead of state and local law enforcement departments across the nation, including D.C.’s D.C. police, that have implemented these best policing practices. The Ghaisars have experienced a tragedy with no access to information, and would still be left completely in the dark if it were not for the Fairfax County Police Department. We owe it to the Ghaisars to do everything we can to ensure other families are not similarly left in the dark.”
The costs of requiring such equipment on federal police nationwide are unknown. In the Washington area alone, there are 32 federal police agencies charged with protecting government property, including the Capitol Police, the Federal Protective Service and the Amtrak police, as well as the uniformed police forces of large agencies such as the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Secret Service.
After Norton and Beyer announced their intent to introduce such a bill in January, they said that Park Police Chief Robert MacLean told them he supported the idea of equipping his officers with cameras. He has not spoken publicly about the Ghaisar case in the year since it occurred and did not comment Friday. Jeremy Barnum, the chief spokesman for the National Park Service, said the department “does not take a position on proposed legislation until we have provided official testimony on the legislation to Congress.”
Although Norton and Beyer announced the bill in January, they didn’t introduce it for another 10 months. “Our feeling with this bill was that we wanted to take time and get it right,” said Aaron Fritschner, a spokesman for Beyer. He noted that it provides for privacy rights for people captured in footage as well as how long footage must be maintained and who may review such footage. He said the staffs of Norton and Beyer met with officials from various agencies, privacy advocates and other interested parties.
In January, Pat O’Carroll, executive director of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said his officers support being equipped with cameras but would have several concerns. Officers would want to be equipped with the best technology available and to be sure that proper policies and procedures would be in place to handle the use, retention and release of the videos, O’Carroll said.
The bill requires all body-camera footage to be maintained for six months and then permanently deleted. But the footage must be maintained for three years if it captures use of force or an incident subject to a complaint. Officers would be required to notify people that they are being recorded, and crime victims, witnesses and occupants of private residences shall be asked if they want the camera turned off, the bill states. In-car footage must be retained for at least 90 days, the bill states, and each vehicle should have at least 10 hours of storage and wireless microphone capability.
The proposed law also states that, in any case involving force or citizen complaint, officers may not review the footage before writing their reports and being interviewed about the event, unless necessary to address an immediate safety threat. This is a thorny issue that police chiefs across the country have been confronting, with some allowing officers to review footage and some not.
The bill prohibits the use of facial recognition technology with the video cameras. It also limits who may access such footage, but in cases involving a killing or grievous injury “the requested video footage shall be provided as expeditiously as possible.”
Roy L. Austin Jr., a lawyer for the Ghaisar family, said of the bill: “At a minimum, federal law enforcement agencies should be held to the same basic standards as state and local law enforcement agencies. This bill does a lot to require a common sense change to the way federal law enforcement is allowed to operate in this country. While nothing can bring Bijan back and truly bring justice to his family, friends and community, knowing that his life was responsible for this crucial reform would at least be some solace.”
A vigil marking the first anniversary of the Ghaisar shooting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial. Beyer, whose district includes the Fort Hunt area of Fairfax County where the shooting occurred, has pushed federal authorities in vain for information about the case, and is set to speak at the vigil.
“The still-unexplained killing of Bijan Ghaisar shows how important it is to make these reforms,” Beyer said in a release, “which will benefit victims, officers, and the communities they serve. No family should have to endure what the Ghaisars have gone through over the past year, and this bill would help prevent that from happening again.”
Rick Smith
Daily Herald (Provo, UT)
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Mining company will alter expansion plan to leave historic West Mountain petroglyphs in place
A local mining company has decided to leave rocks containing ancient petroglyphs in place rather than move them as part of an anticipated gravel pit expansion.
Kilgore Companies, which has operated in the Benjamin area for years, submitted notice of intent to expand its gravel mining operation in Benjamin from 44 to 97 acres. That was approved in August 2017 by the Bureau of Land Management.
In an unusual turn of events, however, that approval was halted when ancient petroglyphs were found on nine boulders inside the expansion area. The circumstances were somewhat unusual, said Matt Preston, BLM field manager for the west desert district, because the area had previously been surveyed multiple times and found to have no cultural resources such as petroglyphs.
“I think it’s really unusual to have professional surveys conducted, to have missed it and to have to go back again,” Preston said. “But in this case, it’s entirely understandable how they missed them. They’re on these small boulders in such a way that light has to be just right to see it.”
The petroglyphs came to light after the BLM received public feedback indicating there was ancient rock art in the area, Preston said.
“We take that pretty seriously,” Preston said.
One of the people who discovered the rock art, or re-discovered it, was Steve Acerson, president of the Utah Rock Art Research Association. Acerson said he was contacted by locals who were concerned with the gravel pit’s expansion plan, and wanted him to look for petroglyphs in the area.
Acerson and other URARA members scoured the West Mountain area for more than two and half months, finding a total of 90 boulders containing petroglyphs. Acerson sent those locations to the BLM.
The BLM then commissioned an official archaeology firm to verify Acerson’s findings.
Even with Kilgore’s expansion already approved, the BLM retains a stipulation in its decisions that the discovery of cultural resources like petroglyphs can halt that plan, Preston said.
That verification of those rock art panels necessitated the BLM’s compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act, which dictates Kilgore find the best way to either avoid the rock art, minimize the impact or form a mitigation plan.
That kicked off a process in which stakeholder meetings were organized with Kilgore, the BLM and URARA among others, to get feedback and talk through options.
The feedback received at these meetings was diverse, Preston said, with a number of parties preferring Kilgore avoid the petroglyphs altogether and leave them in place, while others saw opportunity in a mitigation approach where the rock could be moved somewhere more accessible to the public.
Stewart Lamb, the manager of business development for Kilgore Companies, said originally, Kilgore explored moving the boulders out of the mining area to a place where the public could enjoy them.
“We’ve changed directions because of the public involvement process and working with the BLM,” Lamb said. They now plan to mine around those boulders rather than move them.”
“The public expressed concern about the artifacts themselves, and also the context in which they sit,” Lamb said. “So that’s where, the avoidance satisfies the issue of both context and protection.”
Acerson said a couple of options kicked around were moving the boulders to Lincoln Beach or Brigham Young University to display. That, however, didn’t take into effect the significance of the boulder’s original placement in what the drawings were intended to mean, Acerson said.
“If you had a book with a story and took pages our randomly and put those pages somewhere else, the story has been lost in its full context,” Acerson said. “By taking them to BYU, putting them in a museum, that part of the story that an individual created on West Mountain is pretty much lost.”
The boulders within the expansion area contain human figures, big horned sheep, deer and even a tarantula. Acerson believes, because of the boulders’ placement, that they were used as markers for hunts in the past.
These factors made leaving the boulders in place, in Acerson’s opinion, the best option.
“It was really encouraging that (Kilgore) could adjust and understand the need,” Acerson said.
Preston said the BLM wasn’t pushing for one option over the other, but said he’s pleased with the choice to avoid disturbing the rock art.
“I think what Kilgore decided to do, I think it’s telling of their company, and it’s good to have those kind of partners that listen to feedback and adapt and do their best to work with the process and with neighbors,” Preston said.
Though Kilgore told stakeholders at a meeting Nov. 13 about its plans for avoidance, Preston said there is still work to be done. Kilgore still needs to submit a new, revised expansion plan showing how they’ll avoid the rock art. That has to then be approved by the BLM.
There are no deadlines for them to submit such a document, Preston said, though they can’t begin their expansion until the plan is approved.
Lamb said the decision to avoid the petroglyphs significantly impacts Kilgore’s expansion plan, because not only do they need to mine around the boulders, they also need to avoid the area above where the panels sit.
Kilgore is still working on details for the new expansion plan, though Stewart doesn’t have a timeline for completion yet as it will depend on when additional engineering can be completed.
Rick Smith
WAMU (Washington, DC) NPR
Friday, November 23, 2018
Escaped D.C. Slave Gains Formal Recognition In Adams Morgan Park
Martin Austermuhle
The daring escape of a woman who was enslaved in D.C. is now being commemorated with a wayside marker in an Adams Morgan park.
The new marker was installed at Kalorama Park in mid-November, commemorating the 1861 escape of 20-year-old slave Hortense Prout from her owner, John Little, who lived in a manor house that occupied a portion of what was then a sprawling 56-acre estate. Little, a butcher, was said to have owned 17 slaves.
Prout’s escape was noted in the June 17, 1861 edition of the Evening Star:
A FUGITIVE. – A slave woman belonging to Mr. John Little having eloped, Mr. Little made diligent search and ascertained that she was in one of the Ohio camps. He made a visit to the camp and told the colonel commanding what he wanted, and the reply was, ‘You shall have her, if she is here.’ Search was made, and the fugitive was found, completely rigged out in male attire. She was immediately turned over to the custody of Mr. Little, and was taken to jail. Every opportunity is afforded loyal citizens of loyal States to recover their fugitive slaves.
Prout was eventually freed when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which ended slavery in D.C. on April 16, 1862. The act came almost nine months before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which applied to Confederate states. Little received just over $500 in compensation for Prout.
The effort to recognize Prout started in 2008, when local residents successfully petitioned the National Park Service to add Kalorama Park to National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a series of 600 sites nationwide that commemorate the effort to free slaves. There are 18 sites in D.C. and dozens more in Maryland, which was a Union state but did not abolish slavery until 1864.
The new wayside marker includes information about Prout in both English and Spanish.