GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Arron Buehler’s day in a western Colorado canyon might not have had the Hollywood panache of Ferris Bueller’s day off, but something about seeing Buehler’s name scrawled on the sandstone escarpment gave Chris Joyner pause.
Joyner, spokesman for the Grand Junction Office of the Bureau of Land Management, looked at Buehler’s name - and those of many others emblazoned on rock in a canyon south of Grand Junction - and said that, paradoxically, there might be a reason for hope.
It was just last year that Buehler posted his name, next to Elizabeth, who left her mark in 2017.
Few of the names appeared to be more than a year or two old, and, “That tells me there’s opportunity here,” Joyner said.
The more recent the markings, the more likely the vandals are to be found, and the more likely it is that other methods might discourage younger people from following Arron Buehler’s lead, Joyner said.
Joyner and BLM archaeologist Alissa Leavitt-Reynolds are working in Grand Junction to deal with vandalism on federal lands, whether it be by graffiti artists such as Charley Humpy (who helpfully added, “Remember me” next to his name and yes, the BLM is doing all it can to achieve total recall), drug users ditching evidence in the desert, mayhem by “marksmen” and plain old dumping.
As much as Arron Buehler and a multitude of companions - Brian, Charley, Dizz, Dominique, Kay, Megan, Elizabeth, Jon, Sam and Tosha all seem to be begging for court dates (and Tosha, did you know your name covered an ancient petroglyph?) - Joyner said prosecution ought not be the only response to a growing trend of vandalism and worse on western Colorado’s rocky outcrops and arid landscapes.
Citations for vandalism aren’t tracked by the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes offenses on federal land, so no precise numbers are available.
An Army veteran, Joyner is using his post 9/11 GI Bill funds at Johns-Hopkins University to study ways to divert people from what he terms “dysfunctional visitor behavior.”
“Dysfunctional visitor behavior” has a more authoritative ring than “vandalism” and “littering” and Joyner said he hopes that a scholarly approach can help agencies fend off some of the destructive activity on federal lands before it takes place.
Some of his research suggests that “informed participation in nearby historic and cultural sites” can influence the way many residents perceive those sites, Joyner said.
The students in Ginger DeCavitch’s social studies classes at Mount Garfield Middle School experienced “informed participation” last summer.
DeCavitch took her students into Bangs Canyon to see the mica mine and found the defaced escarpment “as we were stepping over broken beer bottles and charcoal” from fires.
Vandals had used charcoal to scratch names and slogans on the rock, DeCavitch said.
“They call it tagging” and few participants see any issue with defacing the rock, taking selfies and posting them on social media, DeCavitch said.
She contacted the BLM soon afterward to see if her class could help clean up the mess they found.
“They all wanted to go back,” enough that some students hauled 40-pound containers of water down an occasionally difficult trail to help clean the site, DeCavitch said.
Her middle school students sat silent as members of the Southern Ute tribe described how they perceived the canyon and the ancient markings, many of which had been defaced, DeCavitch said.
Far from being discouraged, her students were enthused about tackling the enormity of the defacement, DeCavitch said.
“We have a plan that we’ll be back,” she said.
Introducing young people properly to wild lands is one way to discourage future vandals and dysfunctional visitors.
It’s one “foot-in-the-door” tactic that Joyner hopes land managers take up.
Visitors also can be endowed with a sense of ownership by agreeing with a simple proposition - the idea that one ought not litter on public lands, for instance - and then be brought along to agree with how to visit them appropriately, Joyner said.
It’s part of a human tendency to want to be consistent, he said. People who agree not to litter tend to want to build on that as opposed to act in contradictory fashion, he said.
Even providing a small gift or trinket can engender a sense of responsibility among potential vandals, Joyner said.
Other techniques include the “broken-window” approach - the idea that replacing broken glass as soon as it’s found and thus denying miscreants their moment of victory - isn’t as easy as it might be in other environments, Joyner said.
DeCavitch’s class, for instance, learned that while cleaning up a mess might eliminate an eyesore, it also could erase history.
Her eager middle-schoolers couldn’t go forward with the cleanup until members of the Southern Ute Tribe, headquartered in Duchesne, Utah, approved the plan, DeCavitch said.
While Joyner’s studies have suggested that males 16 to 25 who live within 60 miles of Grand Junction are the likely offenders, one look at the escarpment suggests that young women are more active participants than crime statistics might suggest, Joyner said.
One study suggests that younger people prefer non-coercive approaches, but Joyner said that doesn’t mean the BLM is losing interest in prosecuting vandals and others.
Far from it.
BLM officials routinely contact school officials and consult high school yearbooks to match the names they come across with people who could be prosecuted.
Some miscreants make it easier, posting selfies of themselves with their works. Some even lower the level of difficulty by including hashtags.
The criminal exposure can reach felony levels because of the difficulty and expense of dealing with cleaning up or restoring the markings that date back hundreds of years.
If the malefactors are found, Joyner said, “We don’t write warning tickets.”
___
Information from: The Daily Sentinel, http://www.gjsentinel.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.