Archinect - News

Trump deals another blow to America's public lands

2019-08-07T20:00:00-04:00

An ardent critic of the federal government who has argued for selling off almost all public lands has been named the Trump administration’s top steward over nearly a quarter-billion federally controlled acres, raising new questions about the administration’s intentions for vast Western ranges and other lands roamed by hunters, hikers and wildlife.

William Perry Pendley, a former mid-level Department of Interior appointee who served in the Ronald Regan administration, has been tapped to oversee the Bureau of Land Management, an organization that oversees nearly 10% of America's land area.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Pendley has previously advocated for selling off nearly all public lands.

Phil Hanceford, conservation director for the Wilderness Society told The Salt Lake Tribune that Pendley's selection to head "BLM just as it is being reorganized strongly suggests the administration is positioning itself to liquidate our shared public lands.”

Land surrounding Michael Heizer’s "City" could lose national monument protection under Trump Administration

2017-07-31T14:55:00-04:00

As City—Michael Heizer’s vast Land Art installation in the Nevada desert—nears completion, the fate of the federally protected land surrounding it could soon be decided. Ryan Zinke, the US Interior Secretary, visited the state on Sunday, 30 July, as part of a review of 27 national monuments ordered by President Donald Trump, which could result in some of these lands being reopened to development.

"A number of museums banded together to call for the site’s preservation," The Art Newspaper explains the background of City's current surroundings (previously also on Archinect), "and in 2015, Obama created the Basin and Range National Monument, which covers 704,000 acres in southern Nevada’s Lincoln and Nye counties, including the land surrounding City and several Native American rock art sites. The next year, he created the Gold Butte National Monument, which covers 300,000 acres in Clark county."

Where journalism neglects, public space suffers

2016-03-09T15:42:00-05:00

“Shady,” “unethical,” “secretive,” “robbed of our due process” — these were just a few of the choice terms used by angry residents this past week at a packed City Council meeting about the selling of Pine Tree Park [in Kent, outside of Seattle, WA]. Longtime Seattle land-use attorney Rick Aramburu has another term for what happened: illegal. It’s also a growing trend in the swath of cities around Seattle, places that no longer receive much scrutiny from the press. “It’s becoming a cancer"

More on recent (legal) park development:

Heizer's "City" now part of national monument, thanks to POTUS

2015-07-10T15:23:00-04:00

Using his authority under the Antiquities Act, the president created a protected area spanning roughly 704,000 acres in central Nevada’s Basin and Range, as well as smaller ones in California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain and Texas’ Waco Mammoth. [...] Broadly supported by environmentalists, [Basin and Range] is also home to a major earthen sculpture, “City” which the artist Michael Heizer has worked to create over nearly half a century.

All in all, these new monuments cover more land than the state of Rhode Island, adding significant mileage to Obama's public lands legacy. The Basin and Range (Nevada), Berryessa Snow Mountain (California) and Waco Mammoth (Texas) monuments cover lands that are either completely or mostly undeveloped, and their now-protected status will prohibit mining and energy leasing.

The designation also encompasses Michael Heizer's "City", the massive land-art project now in the final stage of its creation, located in Garden Valley, Nevada. "City" was an integral part of a public preservation campaign aimed at getting President Obama to act on the area. Heizer will reportedly attend the White House ceremony when the President will sign the monument proclamations.

Also now off the table are talks of a possible rail corridor through the Basin and Range area, chiefly for shipping nuclear waste to the nearby Yucca Mountain repository.

For more on the history of Heizer's "City":

#ProtectCity campaign l...