Poster found attached to signs at the trail head to Recapture Wash and on road signs in San Juan County, Utah, in December 2010.
“Wanted Dead or Alive,” says the poster. It goes on to say that Great Old Broads are not allowed in San Juan County by order of the BLM and the Sheriff’s Office, which is a lie. Both agencies deny any role in the poster’s appearance. A group that included Rose Chilcoat of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, BLM staff, archaeologists, county employees, and local citizens found the poster and several others like it posted on area road signs while they were on a fact-finding trip to Recapture Wash near Blanding, Utah, in mid December.
We suspect that the posters are related to Broads persistent monitoring in the Wash and our reporting of ground conditions to the BLM. We also suspect that some of the people who have been charged with felony counts of destruction of federal property and resources, in part because of our monitoring efforts, are lashing out against us. FYI: dollar value of direct impacts on archaeological resources alone is more than $300,000 and this does not include costs of restoring the land to a natural state or of other resource damage.
Additionally, our efforts informed the BLM’s 2007 decision to close the illegally constructed ATV trail in Recapture Canyon to motorized traffic (the subject of the above-mentioned criminal investigation). The closure is temporary and the BLM is currently deciding whether or not they will grant San Juan County a right-of-way to the trail. Broads is part of a group that continues to scrutinize the BLM’s decision process in this matter. In our humble opinion, granting such a right-of-way would be akin to handing vault keys to bank robbers and inviting them to help themselves.
Our interest in the health of Recapture Wash has apparently caused some San Juan County residents to harbor unkind feelings toward us. While we do not take this threat lightly, such juvenile anonymous actions will not deter us from our efforts to advocate for the land in San Juan County, Utah.