A recent study by Utah State University professors Paul Jakus and Sherzod Akhundjanov concludes that landscape-scale monuments are “neither a boon nor a bane.” The USU economists compared changes in per-capita income for Garfield and Kane with changes in Utah’s other counties and four bordering counties in Arizona. They found incomes rose in step with comparable counties, although they remain lower than the state as a whole. They applied their methodology to three other big Clinton-era monuments — Canyons of the Ancients, Carrizo Plain and Upper Missouri River Breaks — and came up with similar results.
The Grand Staircase designation precluded the development of promising coal leases on the Kaiparowits Plateau, but that lost opportunity was offset by the dozens of businesses established in the towns rimming the monument to serve visitors and migrants coming to enjoy the region’s beauty, said Jakus, who heads USU’s Center for Society, Economics and the Environment.
The USU study also concluded the Staircase designation had minimal impact on grazing, despite ranchers’ complaints that monument rules are putting them out of business. Declines in stocking levels, it found, were likely the result of the cyclical nature of the cattle industry, which happened to peak the year the monument was designated, and persistent drought, which has reduced available forage. Salt Lake Tribune
