• Arizonans to vote on taking Grand Canyon, other lands from federal control

    National Park Service via EPA

    Boaters travel down the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.

    By Tim Gaynor, Reuters

    When voters in Arizona go to the polls next month, they will be asked to decide a landownership tug of war: Should the Grand Canyon belong to all Americans, or just the residents of Arizona?


    A controversial ballot measure backed by Republicans in the state legislature is seeking sovereign control over millions of acres of federal land in the state, including the Grand Canyon.

    Proposition 120 would amend the state's constitution to declare Arizona's sovereignty and jurisdiction over the "air, water, public lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources within the state's boundaries."

    The measure is the latest salvo in the so-called "sagebrush revolt" by Republicans in the West aiming to take back control of major swaths of land owned by various federal agencies, much of it by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management.

    State Sen. Sylvia Allen, one of the Republican backers of the measure, argues that federal retention of the land hurts the economy of the Western states and leaves them struggling to fund public education, nurture their economies, and manage their forests and natural resources.

    "We do not have the ability in rural Arizona to provide jobs for our citizens due to the fact that the federal government controls all the land," Allen told Reuters. "It leaves us at a great disadvantage. We're not able to bring in industry and provide for the jobs that we need," she added.

    The exact area of public land targeted by the measure -- which excludes American Indian reservations and federal installations such as arsenals - was not immediately clear on the Arizona Secretary of State's website.

    The Sierra Club pegged the area at between 39,000 and 46,700 square miles -- or 34 percent to 41 percent of the entire state.

    The ballot measure is just the latest move in a decades-old federal-state skirmish over control of a wide range of natural resources in Western states, often pitting mining, drilling and logging companies against those seeking to protect the environment. 

    The efforts have had mixed success. In May, Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a state bill calling on Washington to relinquish the title to 48,000 square miles, arguing that it created uncertainty for existing leaseholders on federal lands in difficult economic times.

    But similar legislation was signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert in neighboring Utah in March, despite warnings from state attorneys that it was likely unconstitutional and would trigger a costly and ultimately futile legal battle.

    Opponents of the latest drive to assert Arizona's ownership say that, if successful, the initiative could undermine protections provided by federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act, and would saddle Arizona with lands for which it would be unable to care.

    "They can't even fund and ensure that their (state) parks are protected, so how they would take on an additional 25 to 30 million acres of land is a big question mark," Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, told Reuters.

    No polls have given a sense of whether Prop 120 will prosper during the November 6 election. But Bahr cautioned that, should it pass, it would inevitably trigger fresh litigation for Arizona, which recently fought a legal battle over its tough 2010 crackdown on illegal immigrants all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    "This one is just blatantly unconstitutional," Bahr said of Prop 120. "Does Arizona really need another lawsuit?" 

    More content from NBCNews.com:

    Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

     

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Grand Canyon banning sales of bottled water

    Water filling stations like this one are deployed across Grand Canyon National Park.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Activists concerned that Coca-Cola might be influencing National Park Service policy were breathing a bit easier Tuesday after the Grand Canyon National Park announced it would eliminate the sale of bottled water inside the park within 30 days.

    "Our parks should set the standard for resource protection and sustainability," John Wessels, regional director for the park service, said in a statement. "I feel confident that the impacts to park concessioners and partners have been given fair consideration and that this plan can be implemented with minimal impacts to the visiting public."

    The move came after activists on Dec. 2 released an email from National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis in which he stated that "while I applaud the intent (of the ban), there are going to be consequences, since Coke is a major sponsor of our recycling efforts."

    Coca-Cola is also a major vendor of water and other drinks throughout the parks system.

    The email disclosure was followed by Jarvis on Dec. 14 directing parks to implement a policy to reduce and recycle disposable water bottles. Included was "an option to eliminate in-park sales" if the regional director so approved and "following a thorough analysis of a variety of factors ranging from the cost to install water filling stations, to the cost and availability of BPA-free reusable containers, to potential effects on public safety," the park service stated.　

    The group that obtained the email, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told msnbc.com that while it considers the decision a victory it still has concerns.

    "While we are happy that Director Jarvis has reversed course, the record clearly shows intense public scrutiny forced this abrupt U-turn -- it did not result from a dispassionate or open decision-making process," PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said. "We hope this episode will limit the role of corporate donors in park management decisions."

    Ruch said PEER still questions several provisions that he called "bureaucratic hoops" -- including ones that require any park seeking to ban plastic bottles to run it by the NPS health office and take annual surveys on visitor satisfaction and sales revenues.

    "While Grand Canyon National Park has apparently met these requirements," he said, "another dozen parks, including Yellowstone and Death Valley, that had been considering bottle bans when Jarvis issued his system-wide moratorium may be deterred."

    Grand Canyon National Park estimates that the waste associated with disposable bottles makes up 20 percent of its overall waste stream and 30 percent of its recyclables. It has also "experienced increasing amounts of litter associated with disposable plastic bottles along trails both on the rim and within the inner canyon, marring canyon viewpoints and visitor experiences," the park service stated.

    Coke, Grand Canyon bottled water controversy gets murkier

    "We want to minimize both the monetary and environmental costs associated with water packaged in disposable containers," added Grand Canyon Superintendent Dave Uberuaga.

    Visitors instead are encouraged to bring or buy reusable water bottles, which can be refilled for free at stations throughout the park that use spring water.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

  • Coke, Grand Canyon bottled water controversy gets murkier

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    The National Park Service chief has said that his decision to block a ban on selling bottled water at Grand Canyon National Park was based on safety and contracts, but emails released Friday indicate an early concern was how Coca-Cola, a major water vendor as well as parks funder, would react.

    "While I applaud the intent, there are going to be consequences, since Coke is a major sponsor of our recycling efforts," NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis said in the email exchange posted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The watchdog group obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.

    Jarvis then directed two deputies to further "talk about this before GRCA pulls the plug" -- GRCA being shorthand for Grand Canyon. He further noted that the president of the National Park Foundation, through which Coca-Cola and other private entities help with funding, "would like to host a meeting of the beverage reps, which makes some sense to me."

    Coca-Cola did contact the foundation with concerns, National Park Service spokesman David Barna told msnbc.com, but "that just started the conversation."

    "The initial plan to end sales of bottled water in Grand Canyon National Park raised more questions than it answered," he added.

    On the other hand, Barna said, Coca-Cola's recycling campaign at the National Mall, part of the park service, "was more holistic, with the goal to recycle all bottles, rather than focus on one type" by banning it.

    PEER earlier this year accused Jarvis of caving in to Coca-Cola, at which time he issued a statement that his decision in December 2010 to scuttle the ban "was not influenced by Coke, but rather the service-wide implications to our concessions contracts, and frankly the concern for public safety in a desert park."

    The safety concern refers to the possibility that visitors without access to water could succumb to the heat.

    In a statement, PEER said that argument "appears especially farfetched given that Grand Canyon had spent more than $300,000 installing 'watering stations' and made reusable containers available.

    "Zion National Park, a desert park, banned plastic bottles more than two years ago with no reported ill effects," it added.

    A second string of emails released Friday shows that the chief of commercial services for the park service directed other parks to avoid their own bans until further notice.

    "A number of concessioners and bottled water suppliers have expressed concern over this initiative," Jo Pendry wrote last Jan. 11. "The Director has asked that we host a meeting with the water bottlers ... (and) also asked that no NEW initiatives be implemented until a Service-wide position is developed on this issue (e.g., no new water bottle bans!)"

    The ban was championed as a way to reduce solid waste by Steve Martin, who retired as superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park earlier this year.

    "Both the paper record is there for how widespread the understanding of what we were doing was, and the approvals," The Associated Press quoted him as saying last month. "That's what makes it so extraordinary. Right as we're moving to the finish line on a really excellent program, because of Coke's influence, it was scuttled."

    More news and feature stories from msnbc.com: