SUMMARY: What kind of future should a struggling rural town choose? In the town of Green River [Utah], population 950, a nonprofit called Epicenter aims to use art and architecture to bring new energy, life and economic development. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY: President Trump took aim at two different national monuments in Utah, announcing a plan to downsize them in order to rectify what he says were instances of overreach by prior administrations. With the full support of the state's all-Republican congressional delegation, Trump proposed shrinking Bears Ears by 85 percent and reducing Grand Staircase-Escalante by almost half. William Brangham reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to the second in our two-part look at land disputes in the American West.
Last night, Jeffrey Brown looked at a fight between local residents and the federal government over closing down a canyon rich in archaeological treasures to motorized vehicles.
Tonight, Jeff has the story of a very different split over how to enjoy and experience the natural beauty.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Stretch a high-tech nylon line some 400 feet above a canyon near Moab, Utah.
HAYLEY ASHBURN: Do you want to tighten it before we walk?
SCOTT ROGERS: It’s really tight, actually.
JEFFREY BROWN: Strap on a harness.
SCOTT ROGERS: I’m going to go barefoot. I like feeling the line between my toes.
JEFFREY BROWN: And step out into the air.
HAYLEY ASHBURN: Whew!
JEFFREY BROWN: It’s called highlining, done on public lands, a perfectly legal activity that most of us, including your correspondent, who stayed far back from cliff’s edge, would never dream of undertaking.
HAYLEY ASHBURN: I’m always a little bit nervous no matter how many I do.
JEFFREY BROWN: But Hayley Ashburn and Scott Rogers, members of a group called the Moab Monkeys, do this sort of thing several times a week.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A battle over the question of local control vs. federal power is playing out in the Western U.S. once again, and this time, it involves a prized Native American archaeological site.
It’s happening in Utah, where federal prosecutors filed criminal charges of conspiracy yesterday against five men who organized an illegal all-terrain vehicle ride into a canyon closed to motorized vehicles. Seven years ago, federal land managers closed the canyon to ATVs and the like to protect it. Since that time, the dispute has come to stand for a much larger fight.
Jeffrey Brown visited the canyon and the protest organizers for his series Culture at Risk.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): It’s called Recapture Canyon, 28 miles of rocky cliffs, juniper trees and wildlife in southeast Utah.
And for hundreds of years, beginning around 500 A.D., it was home to a large Native American Pueblo population.
So how many people would have lived in a place like this?
JODY PATTERSON, Archaeologist: In a structure like, you would have probably had an extended family, 10, 12, maybe up to 15 people.
