Watergrab Tour Pony Springs

Across the valley from Pony Springs is a huge pinion/juniper “restoration” site. It's plain to see that all that water from all that clear-cut logged forest ended up on that farm downhill.

Now, as a society, we may choose to do these things and accept the tradeoffs. But I don't remember voting on it. This is happening all over the West. Millions of trees are being killed. And what's the perpetrators stated reason? To save the Sage Grouse. But they don't have much evidence that clear-cut logging actually works. Yes, sage grouse like to nest in more open areas. But that doesn't prove there are more sage grouse. The population data is inconclusive. Think about it; if sage grouse populations increased because of pinion juniper “restoration,” they would have told us years ago. Which means the obvious, millions of trees are being killed for some other reason. And that reason is obviously water.

In the valley to the West, Cave Valley, there are no farms or ranches downstream of the pinion/juniper clear-cut sites. There is just the proposed SNWA watergrab pipeline. The SNWA has publicly supported pinion/juniper “restoration.” So, is pinion/juniper clear-cut logging just to export more water, or is it to kill off the forests before the Watergrab – so that there won't be any dried up forests to take pictures of? 

Cave Valley before "restoration"