Letter to the Editor: Rebuttal to report of Escalante, Garfield County on verge of devastation

Stock image, St. George News

OPINION — The article written by Ms. Carin Miller about Escalante is the most biased, illogical, untrue, factless, one sided article ever written about Escalante, Garfield County.

The truth of the matter is the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is the best thing to have happened to Escalante and the State of Utah.  Check out the stats.

Not mentioned in the article are the 17 percent or so new people that have moved into town in the last ten years;  scientists, artists, writers, business people who have sunk millions of dollars into cleaning up the run down Main Street and residential neighborhoods.  They have built and restored houses, businesses (six new ones on Main Street alone),  land and helped tourism flourish. Escalante has a great new medical clinic and new hardware store.

Escalante is now a tourist town.  Escalante is not what it was. Escalante’s mayor Jerry Taylor’s statements, attitudes and practices need an update. It isn’t about the old, what was.  Escalante has been discovered by the world for its natural beauty and nature.

Personally I find this article insulting to Escalante businesses and residents. I believe the real problem with Garfield County and Escalante is the mayor and county commissioners, who have mismanaged the change, missed every available opportunity and hence why they believe Escalante in dire straights.

Submitted by Scott Nelson, Escalante Rock Shop, Escalante

Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them; they do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News.

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Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting.

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16 Comments

  • native born new mexican June 22, 2015 at 10:54 am

    Mr. Nelson is obviously not a rancher or a person who makes their living off the land. Being a tourist town and producing nothing ( Selling rocks is producing nothing that people need.) is not a stable way to live nor is it good for the economy in the long run. You can’t export and sell real goods from service jobs that are only seasonal at best. We here in the united states produce almost nothing. We are totally dependent on the rest of the world to provide us with our needs including tourists to buy Mr. Nelson’s rocks. When the tourists don’t come Mr. Nelson will go broke and get very hungry. The Economy is crashing and the day is quickly coming when the tourists will not be able to travel. Those who have a few fat cows are going to be very happy about that. Maybe some kind soul will give Mr. broke out of business Nelson something to eat. That is how it really is and will be.

    • Bender June 22, 2015 at 3:19 pm

      Logging and mining are the very definition of a boom and bust economy. Cattle ranching has never provided more than a meager living for a handful who graze their animals on public lands. You don’t grow a long term stable economy on public lands resource extraction.

      • native born new mexican June 23, 2015 at 8:37 am

        Cattle ranching feeds people. There is nothing more important than that. Using natural resources to feed people by allowing animals to graze – what a good idea!

        • fun bag June 23, 2015 at 9:37 am

          “ranching” in the sense you speak of it is a boutique industry anymore… industrial scale feed lots are where the beef comes from now…

          • RealMcCoy June 23, 2015 at 11:02 am

            Not everyone wants the hormone-pumped beef that you speak of.

  • anybody home June 22, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    Mr. Nelson, you’re terrific. Thanks for shedding light and exposing the bias of this newspaper and its writers. You’re the voice of the new Utah but of course the “down and outers” prefer to whine and complain about the government. If you can drag them out of the 19th century, more power to you. In the meantime, “illegitimi non carborundum!”

    • native born new mexican June 22, 2015 at 7:00 pm

      Since you shouldn’t use the kind of bad language your little phrase stands for on this site you try to sneak the words in anyway. I promise I won’t use that kind of language on you but I don’t think it would really matter to you. I don’t need to be vulgar to make my point. It’s not the people that will bite Mr. Nelson hard; it is the economy. Go read about it for yourself. When the tourists go away, which they will soon the money goes away also. Service jobs are low paying, seasonal, and mostly stop gap until a person can find a better job. They are not the road to economic recovery. They are a sign of how bad the economy really is. In plain words – you can eat cows. You can’t eat rocks and trinkets.

  • Brian June 22, 2015 at 2:10 pm

    So we traded farmers, ranchers, miners and energy producers for artists, writers, and rock sellers? That should work out really well when the faux economy we have tanks soon.

  • Bender June 22, 2015 at 3:13 pm

    I can’t comment on the hard economic numbers of now vs 35 years ago but there is a huge difference in appearance driving through town. Back in the early 80’s when I first started visiting Garfield County, Escalante was a sad, run-down place. Last time I drove through I was shocked at how vibrant the place seemed.

  • fun bag June 22, 2015 at 8:12 pm

    logging, mining, oil drilling. The use it all up mentality is just not a viable solution anymore. i understand how the old timers want a quick buck and hate anything that even mentions the word “sustainability” but we this aint lala land and Jesus aint gonna come down and fix it when the environment goes to crap from the use it all up philosophy. Wanna see what happens with that, go visit china…

    • Brian June 23, 2015 at 7:07 am

      Says the guy who’s car runs on gas, has a house full of plastics made from oil and consumer goods trucked using diesel, furniture and studs made from wood, is typing on a computer powered by coal and natural gas, but is proud he’s so much more “sustainable” than the “old timers” that grow their own food, fix their own goods, “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”, etc.

      • fun bag June 23, 2015 at 9:34 am

        Bri, I fully understand how you and New mexican want the world to be, but that just isn’t the reality of things anymore. Things gonna change for the worst, and the most they can hope to do is slow it down, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really care and ‘sustainability’ is prob just a cute pipe dream… 😉

  • arrowone June 23, 2015 at 6:40 am

    Funny when the most low sulfur coal in the US was no longer available to mine due to the Escalante Monument formation by the Clinton adminstration, we started importing coal from China.

    • fun bag June 23, 2015 at 9:35 am

      LOL, are u rly this dumb? or is it satire?

  • Utahhunter June 23, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    I have lived in Garfield County for 40 years and have never heard the name Scott Nelson!!! Enough said

  • Cuberantcamper August 13, 2015 at 11:12 pm

    Cows are the food of the past. Grazing is too hard on the environment and it takes 12 pounds of feed to produce one pound of beef on a feed lot. Wasting precious land and food will have to stop someday, the human race has no choice.

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