I just can't figure out this Bush fella, he auctions off pristine land in Utah then protects ocean thousands of miles off the California coast??? I guess you won't be able to see the gorgeous mountains in Utah but if you care to sail a thousand miles you can see some pretty water...
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11389395
Bush protects unique areas across the Pacific
Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by LeBuick, Jan 6, 2009.
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Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Have you ever been to Utah's mountains ? I was there about 3 months ago, and they were beautiful, as they always are.
And it's hard to figure people out while holding onto biases. -
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-17-092.asp
Take a look, some of the prettiest land you've ever seen... -
Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
I am not familiar with the Utal dealings with the oil companies. Bush has always been very partial toward them. But that is where his money has come from.
However, on topic, the setting aside of the Pacific areas is one I highly approve of and applaud Bush for. So, there are at least two areas I applaud Bush for. Some say I never have a kind word to say about Bush, that 'taint so. -
Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
So neither one of you has been to Utah ?
I missed the Utah caveat in God's command to subdue the Earth. And if you think you can destroy the Wasatch range with a few oil rigs, then you've never been to Utah. -
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The only time I got to 'see' Utah was from the driver's seat of a condo tractor-trailer rig. But the company had a terminal off the I-215 so was routed through several times, mostly from east-west-east directions. I did get loads and had either pick-ups, deliveries, or swaps which took me to around Plain City...north; Vernal .....to the east; and once dropped down through Moab ....to the south -southeast heading to Farmington, New Mexico. Fortunately those trips were in day light and the landscape was awesome.
The mountains in Utah are so vaiable as I recall. On the I-80 there's a difference in the colors and the sides of the mountain on the north side from the south side. Some rise next to each other and side by side, even the rock formations differ and, sometimes, the colors. In the south the Mountains are also mixed but less grays and blues. Its more like harden clays and sands, some beige and tan, but most in hues of red, some rising like monoliths of hard rock stubborn and rigid against the landscape and others looking like hugmongous dumps of clay and sand, with sheered sides and giving a false but impression from the distance of softness and imaginary submission to the landscape.
Traveling through Moab, it looked like a festival was taking place. The town is on either side of the road and one sees few routes off the main route.... and that is narrow. The day I passed through was mid-afternoon, and it looked like every restuarant was filled, there were vehicles parked barely off the road and people mulling about on both sides of the road. It looked to me like hundreds, maybe a thousand..... but where did they come from? I had no idea! I had not seen farms or villages, or developments suggesting of a community near by and once through this town ..... there were very few communities through which to pass or see people before I crossed into Colorado and on into New Mexico. It was dark by this time but I think I had seen the best which could be seen from the road while passing.
I've seen oil wells down here within 30 miles of my home; Some built in the marsh lands in the 50's and 60's, and some built in the middle of farmers fields in the late 70's and pumping through the 80's and 90's. I think my 20x30 shed takes up as much room as does a well, fenced off and completed with working pump. The farmers' cattle graze on grass grown right up to the well site, or they plant their cotton, corn and soybeans all around it. The service 'road' to the site is nothing more than a dirt path, very narrow, such as a farmer uses to access the back of a field. Most of the people in this area have no access to public water but their deep wells keep workign and there's been no problems which I've heard of. Community water has finally moved into the country and those wells are checked for pollutants and none have been found...... and the water taste great like it did to me as a child drinking from a well.
I think many people, when they think of oil wells... they have that classic picture of an oil well standing in the middle of barren land, with a tower of metal for the drill and heavy equipment parked around, flat beds, dumps of pipes and people in hard hats. The acerage seems excessively occupied, the staging area and trafficked area a large circumference framing in its largess, the importance of this one small and solitary rig in the middle of 'nowhere'. This is the picture which even the oil companies want us to have of their industry..... and it may be the reality allowed in other countries which restrict them less than we do. But drilling for oil is so highly regulated even before the test wells go in and the environmentalist are on top of everything from the very start that dammage to the landscape is minimalized and also that to the environment. Once oil is struck and the pump placed in, everything else which might have been distrubed is returned to its preconditions as much as possible, but the well keeps on supplying for years and years.
We have too many people that have seen little of the vastness of our country, who only have pictures in their minds from travel magazines, National Geographics, National Parks magazines and books and brochuers. So many live in or near big cities and imagine that is all they'll ever see but hope for a dream vacation when they shake loose the dust and gather the courage to adventure and discover some of the wilderness they have so actively participated in protecting.... or that their grandchildren will do it for them and bring back the stories. We just have no idea of the abundance we do have in this country....... so much so...... that it would almost take an act of the will to purposely destroy it, and definitely more than a few oil wells! -
Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Yep, I've been in Utah, beautiful place. You could take the entire southern half of the state and make it into one huge national park. Utah is incrediably beautiful.
A few oil rigs might not destroy the mountains, but then I remember when I was a kid the coal companies in West Virginia were saying a few strip mines won't hurt the mountains. If you have seen what has been done to the mountains in WV you might pause to think before making the comment you made. It is so terrible how those mountains have been raped. And yes I understand that an oil well is not the same as a strip mine ... but there are dangerous there also.
There is a good book about Utah entitled, "It's a Hell of a Place to Loose a Cow." I do not remember the author's name.
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Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Why are you comparing oil rigs to strip mining ? Kind of silly. Not going to address it.
And I have been to WV. Extended camping stays in the Shenandoh. Very nice, but molehills compared to real mountains we have out here. -
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Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Oh please. He tricked us again, eh ?
I LOVE oil rigs. They mean energy & jobs. -
I guess it doesn't bother anyone else but I believe we should be good stewards of this gift God has given us. Good steward is part of having dominion. -
Believe it or not.... the government still controls the oil. Other words... there is stewardship built in to the processes: Just because an oil company is in possession of mineral rights... or 'rents' with royalies going to the land owner doesn't mean they can drill as much as they want or pump as much as they'd like. All kinds of environmental protections are put into place before each site of drilling, and the watchfullness of the EPA continues.... and, if they appear to get slack....the environmentalist groups step in with oversight so insistant that even false leads and charges have to be proven wrong or corrected or processes get stopped. -
Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
I agree W/C. We gotta keep God out of issues like prayer in school & gay marriage, yet we have to invoke his name when it comes to wealth redistribution & "stewardship" of the Earth.
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Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Are you dumb ? Or lazy ? I don't know why I even address anything you say.
Shenandoah Valleyextends southwestward from the vicinity of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, on the Potomac River and lies between the Blue Ridge to the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west. Drained by the Shenandoah River, it embraces nine counties Berkeley and Jefferson in West Virginia and Frederick, Clarke, Shenandoah, Warren, Rockingham, Page, and Augusta in Virginia.
http://www.blueridgeonline.com/ShenandoahValley.htm
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Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Bumping up for you-know-who....will he acknowledge his geographical error.
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
That's right! :thumbs:
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