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Civilizations have perished from famine, flood, pestilence and war, but ours might just be the first to die of regulation.
We say that because, with energy prices soaring and the nation desperate to use fuels other than what is provided by South American dictators or Arab sheiks, environmentalists and federal bureaucrats are throwing roadblocks in the way of extracting natural gas here in Utah. Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. is seeking permission to expand its natural gas drilling operations at Nine Mile Canyon in Carbon and Duchesne counties. The canyon's walls contain roughly 1,000 prehistoric American Indian rock-art images. Environmentalists have objected to the plans, saying dust kicked up by construction and tank trucks traveling the gravel road damages old pictures, some of which are chiseled into the rock while others are painted. The company says steps can be taken to prevent damage. Paving the road, for example, would reduce dust and provide a lasting benefit to area residents and tourists. There are also emulsions that can be applied to the road to reduce dust. Carbon County owns the key stretch of road, so it must make the decision what to do with it. It's understandable that government doesn't want to spend a lot of money on a project whose future is unclear. If expanded drilling is approved, funding for road improvements may not be a big obstacle. The Barrett Corp. estimates that royalties and taxes from gas extraction would produce $40 million for the Carbon County and $120 million for the state over the next decade. The proposed mitigations seem reasonable. After all, the petroglyphs have been subject to the onslaught of snow, rain and dust for a thousand years. It's hard to see how a few years of dust from trucks could amount to much compared to a millennium of exposure to the elements. The latest roadblock, however, has nothing to do with the pictures. The federal Bureau of Land Management has worked with the Environmental Protection Agency for years on this problem. But in May the EPA said the project should be halted and a new environmental impact statement submitted. The EPA's main worry was the high level of ozone at the site. The Barrett Corp. in reply notes that ozone levels are above the EPA's new, more stringent levels at Nine Mile Canyon -- as they are along most of the Wasatch Front and much of the rest of Utah. Reducing ozone is a statewide problem that everyone in Utah will have to deal with in coming years. Singling out one company is like the EPA showing up at your house (not your neighbor's) and demanding that you immediately stop driving your car. To sum up, the ozone argument is a red herring -- an irrelevant factor that only distracts attention from the real issues. Has anybody noticed that we're experiencing a national energy crisis? The U.S. must produce more energy. Who's going to pay if it doesn't? That right, you. And the only realistic way to ease the crunch is to produce more energy. Drilling in Nine Mile Canyon would produce a substantial amount of a clean, reliable natural gas. The Barrett Corp. estimates that developing the wells it wants to drill in the canyon could produce an amount of gas equal to 60 percent of Utah's total natural gas consumption for at least a decade. Should our state, local and federal representatives press the BLM and EPA to expedite the process of approving the drilling of more wells in Nine Mile Canyon? We think so, but we're more interested in Utahns' views generally. The petroglyphs are not at risk, in our view, but even if they were, should they placed above our national survival? After all, it's a mystery what the petroglyphs signify. For all anybody knows they could be the doodlings of children, the scribblings of a banished criminal or the first draft of a bad screenplay that, for lack of technology, was never produced. Yet some moderns would place them ahead of all other values, to be preserved for no other reason except that they're old. A famous historian once said that civilizations don't die, they commit suicide, and America's environmentalists, bless their hearts, seem perfectly happy to self-destruct. At least the Indians who lived a millennium ago in Nine Mile Canyon left rock carvings. When the ruins of our civilization are discovered, they may yield only paperwork from federal bureaucrats among a host of rusty machines and abandoned homes. At the rate we're going in this country, there won't even be bones to dig up. Like the Anasazi, all the people will have vanished. -------------- What do you think? Should drilling for natural gas be allowed to expand in Nine Mile Canyon? Send your comments to
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