Local Advocates Dispute Whether ‘Damage Report’ Merits Gold Butte Federal Designation

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Friends of Gold Butte organization last week released a report entitled “Damage in Gold Butte, Nevada” which purports to document resource damage observed in the Gold Butte complex between November 2014 and July 2015.

Included in the 34 page document are dozens of photographs documenting what the organization says are instances of vehicle trespass near cultural and historic sites and harm done to sensitive desert areas. In addition, the report reveals an apparently unauthorized water delivery system having been partially constructed across several miles of desert.

And, though it is outside the purported time frame of the document, the report also includes vandalism done to the gravesites of Arthur Coleman and Billy Garret near the historic Gold Butte townsite. This appalling act of vandalism occurred back in April of 2014.

Officals from Friends of Gold Butte, an environmental group whose mission is to achieve an enhanced federal designation for the area, claim that these instances of damage are clear evidence that the entire area is long overdue for permanent federal protection.

“This documented and ongoing damage highlights the urgent need to permanently protect Gold Butte,” said Jaina Moan, Executive Director for Friends of Gold Butte.
“Gold Butte is a national treasure of cultural, historic, and natural wonders. Like Basin and Range National Monument, which was established in July, it needs immediate protection to make sure these marvels are preserved for current and future generations.”

But local advocates who frequently visit the Gold Butte area say that simply adding more federal designations to an already protected area would be oversimplifying the complex conservation problems which exist on the ground. They insist that a new federal designation alone would not keep instances of damage from occurring. Rather, they fear that such designation would more likely simply restrict access to law-abiding people even while not fully preventing the instances of damages.

“Designation cannot prevent or stop the idiots of the world; just as laws and regulations can’t prevent or stop the idiots and crooks from breaking the laws,” said Elise McAllister of Partners in Conservation.

McAllister pointed to the fact that despite the numerous laws on the books, people still rob banks, drive drunk, evade taxes and do many other illegal acts.
“But oh no, simply designating Gold Butte an NCA, wilderness, National Monument will prevent all stupidity and make the area pristine again,” McAllister said. “Gosh, if it is really that simple, let’s designate 2016 the year of no drunk driving; let’s designate Nevada banks as non-robbing banks, let’s designate tomorrow as No Car Crash Day in Las Vegas. What a brilliant idea!”

Rather than more federal designation, local advocates are interested in seeing more resources placed into locally focused and locally executed conservation effort. McAllister said that there is an extended history of local groups and organizations who have long been volunteering time, money and materials in projects to help repair and prevent conservation problems out in the Gold Butte area.
“There are so many examples of this volunteer effort that rarely get reported, noticed or mentioned,” McAllister said. “For example, a local restaurant that has a collection jar to fund dumpsters for cleanups, concerned citizens that self-organize and clean up an area (with the proper permits/paperwork as that’s the law), folks that get trained to assist with more complicated tasks.

Because we also realize bad things happen because of idiots, vandals, etc. and actually doing something on the ground is one of our solutions to that problem.”
As a specific example, McAllister pointed to the instance of grave vandalism talked about in the report. She emphasized that the current state of that site is actually no longer how it is being depicted in the report. The report pictures an open hole in the ground that vandals used to access the grave. That is the way it was right after the incident in the spring of 2014, McAllister admits. But within just a matter of days, local volunteers had already set things right again at the grave site, she said.

“Rural residents were appalled by this vandalism,” McAllister said. “They contacted the correct authorities, proposed a solution, quietly, quickly executed such, and went back about their regular lives. They did this instead of making a big deal about it a year later, implying that a federal designation would prevent this, wringing their hands, producing a glossy report and not solving anything on the ground at all.”

“The group producing this report had no problem including the grave desecration with a large photo to further their purposes,” McAllister added. “It’s just too bad that the rest of the story wasn’t mentioned. But that wouldn’t exactly support their urgent political agenda to ‘permanently protect Gold Butte’ would it?”