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BLANDING — Hundreds of San Juan County residents loudly shouted "doodah" to a proposed Bears Ears National Monument during a raucous hearing Wednesday on the heated controversy that has reached fever pitch.

The Navajo word for "no" appeared on dozens of T-shirts and vehicle rear windows as in "Doodah National Monument" among those gathered for a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee field hearing and town hall meeting Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, held at San Juan High School.

Local government leaders, tribal members and residents — many angry and frustrated about not being able to speak at a hearing Interior Secretary Sally Jewell held in nearby Bluff earlier this month — told Lee a monument would bring ruin to their county.

"This will kill our community. We will lose our jobs," said English teacher Cassy Moon. "If this happens to us, we will be shut down."

Ranchers said their grazing rights would be stripped away. Farmers said they would lose their land. Educators said school funds would wither. Scouts said their camp would be closed. Navajos said they wouldn't be allowed to perform sacred ceremonies, hunt or gather medicinal herbs.

"I guess you know how us Indians feel trying to fight for our lands," one Navajo man told the mostly white crowd.

Lee is the latest politician to travel to San Juan County for meetings on a potential Bears Ears national monument. He and the rest of Utah's all-Republican congressional delegation and Gov. Gary Herbert have urged President Barack Obama to hold off on making the designation in favor of a legislative compromise.

"What they did to us 20 years ago ought to be enough," Lee said of the Clinton administration creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996. "No more Antiquities Act in Utah."

Vehicles proclaimed "doodah" or "no" in Navajo to proposed Bears Ears National Monument at a public hearing at San Juan High School in Blanding on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. (Photo: Dennis Romboy, Deseret News)

Lee, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he invited the Department of the Interior, U.S. Forest Service and Bears Ears Coalition to attend, but all declined. He said that "proves" he didn't try to stack the deck for the hearing, which included testimony from Herbert, Utah Rep. Rob Bishop and Navajo leaders.

But Willie Grayeyes, chairman of Utah Diné Bikéyah, in a prepared statement called the field hearing a "thinly veiled effort to make it appear that there is more opposition than truly exists." His group wants Obama to declare Bears Ears a national monument.

Jewell toured San Juan, Grand and Emery counties earlier this month, hearing from both opponents and proponents of the 1.9 million acre proposal. She stressed her job was to listen and take information back to Washington, D.C.

Grayeyes said monument supporters came out 2 to 1 at that meeting.

“It is clear that Native Americans in Utah and around the region strongly support the national monument," he said.

Monument opponents said many of those people were bused in from other states and that the meeting did not reflect the sentiments of San Juan County residents.

Bishop and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, recently unveiled the final version of their controversial public lands bill, which no longer includes a mandate to make eastern Utah counties off-limits for future monument designation under the Antiquities Act.

The bill, which Lee would carry in the Senate, now would create two national conservation areas and a wilderness designation to protect 1.4 million acres in Bears Ears.

Herbert called the Public Lands Initiative the best way to find the "messy middle" and would protect and preserve more public land than a presidential monument designation.

"If you really care about the land, this is not some kind of political tomahawk that you use, no pun intended. If this really is about the Bear Ears region, protecting and preserving the land, the (Public Lands Initiative) is by far the superior way to go about it," the governor said.

Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Denver-based Center for Western Priorities, jumped on Herbert's comment in a prepared statement.

"After (Wednesday's) hearing, it’s clear why the tribal backers of a monument designation say they’ve been disrespected throughout the process. When Gov. Herbert refers to a thoughtful tribal proposal for a national monument as 'a political tomahawk,' he continues that sad tradition of dismissing Native voices," she said.

Bishop said the Obama administration can't deliver on promised tribal access and co-management of Bears Ears with his executive authority. Only Congress could do that by putting those things into law.

Related:

Navajo voice opinions on Bears Ears proposal during Hatch, Herbert visit Sen. Orrin Hatch was joined by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert Thursday at the Natural Bridges National Monument in San Juan County where they talked with local Navajo over the push for protections of the Bears Ears area and the differing viewpoints.

"A presidential proclamation cannot guarantee squat," he told the crowd.

The inter-tribal Bears Ears Coalition representing the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute and Ute tribes officially formed a year ago after leaders say they became frustrated with the Public Lands Initiative process being shepherded by Bishop. They asked Obama to use executive power to create a monument.

Rancher and San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams said cattlemen are the original environmentalists because they see the value of good land management.

"We welcome new ideas and improved management practices, but with only 8 percent private property in this county, we must be able to graze public land," Adams said.

When Lee asked him what would happen if those rights were taken away, someone in the crowd shouted "war" before he could answer.

San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman drew some of the loudest cheers when told residents that federal agencies such as Bureau of Land Management would use a national monument against them.

"BLM is a whip used in the hands of special interest groups," he said.

Lyman spent 10 days in jail earlier this year for an illegal ATV ride in nearby Recapture Canyon to protest federal land management policies.

Lewis Singer, a Navajo and retired San Juan School District administrator, said proponents of the monument have held "secret" meetings to entice older Navajos to back the proposal with promises of reclaiming their land. But, he said, that will never happen.

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