ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Siding with environmentalists in one of the nation's biggest wilderness battles, President Clinton declared 1.7 million acres of southern Utah's red- rock cliffs and canyons a national monument Wednesday.
The move effectively blocks development of one of America's largest known coal reserves, to the dismay of political leaders in Utah, the nation's most Republican state.
``We can't have mines everywhere, and we shouldn't have mines that threaten our national treasures,'' the president said.
Standing at the south rim of the rust-colored Grand Canyon, Clinton invoked a 90-year-old law to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument without congressional approval. He announced his decision near the same spot where Theodore Roosevelt used the same law, the Antiquities Act, to protect the Grand Canyon from development in 1908.
``We are saying very simply: Our parents and grandparents saved the Grand Canyon for us; today we will save the Grand Escalante Canyons and the Kaiparowits Plateaus of Utah for our children,'' the president said, bathed in sunlight breaking through the clouds.
The area, 70 miles north of here, is marked with natural arches and bridges, high cliffs of red, white and yellow sandstone, and deep canyons.
Clinton's designation of a national monument in southern Utah covers federal land to the west of the Colorado River and to the east of Bryce Canyon National Park. It includes the coal-rich Kaiparowits Plateau, the Escalante River Canyons and the Grand Staircase.
A Dutch mining company holds coal leases on the 600,000-acre plateau and already has begun some mining operations. The federal government will seek negotiations with the company to trade leases in the area for federal assets elsewhere, the White House said.
Clinton's action delighted environmentalists but brought threats of political retaliation from Utah.
Mike Matz, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, called it ``one of the most significant land actions that any president has done.''
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Clinton was declaring ``war on the West.''
Utah's Republican governor, Michael Leavitt, said Clinton ``completely chose to ignore the process [and] ignore the public trust'' of people in the region.
Yet, with just five electoral votes in Utah, there was not much political risk for Clinton.
Arizona was the third state on Clinton's six-state campaign tour, and it was the second time he visited the state in a week. No Democrat has carried Arizona since Harry Truman in 1948, but Clinton campaign officials say the president holds a narrow lead over Bob Dole.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP President Bill Clinton waves to a crowd at theby CNBGrand Canyon National Park in Arizona.