Rustin

Husband, Father, aspiring horticulturist and part time butcher

[Darcy Wood @DarcyWoodIRL]

Rocky Mountain Power is proposing a 345 kV transmission line through Cedar Valley down the Western border of Quichapa Lake, and the question is not whether southern Utah needs power. It is whether that steel has to cut through the last quiet refuge of Cedar Valley.

Cedar City still runs sheep the way it has since the 1850s.
The Willden family brought the first ten head in those years. By 1869 the Cedar City Cooperative Sheep Association counted 2,184 at Iron Springs. Families whose names are still on that country still summer flocks on the same mountain. That trail is still alive. Last November, 6,000 head were driven off Cedar Mountain, through town, and west toward winter range. Iron County is still one of the top sheep counties in the state. Cattle follow the same mountain-to-desert cycle, much of it on multi-generational family ground, grazing the same land and feeding those Southern Utah families.

Rocky Mountain Power’s draft Three Peaks–Purgatory Flat 345 kV line is being drawn through the west side of Cedar Valley around Quichapa Lake — the rural edge that is supposed to stay pasture, wetland, and family ground.

Quichapa is not empty desert. It is a federally designated lacustrine wetland and, per SUU research, the most biodiverse bird site in Iron County. When it holds water it is a Pacific Flyway stop: Canada geese, mallards, gadwall, cinnamon teal, northern pintail, American avocet, white-faced ibis, American white pelican, eared grebe. Bald eagles and golden eagles hunt that shoreline. Cedar City has been a southern Utah bald-eagle wintering spot for decades.

You can put a 125-foot-class industrial corridor through land that will be commercial and industrial anyway. Or you can put it across the last rural west-valley floor — winter sheep country, cattle pasture, and a wetland eagles actually use.

The company’s own slides already talk about collocating with existing infrastructure. Do that here. Keep the towers on the developing I-15 / commercial-industrial side. Leave Quichapa and the west-valley grazing country rural. The load they are planning for is not out here. It is stacking up along I-15: commercial pads, warehouses, and the data-center appetite that is chewing through rural Utah one campus at a time. It does not have to sacrifice a wetland and a winter range so the next warehouse of servers can stay cold.

This is still a draft route. Comments still count.

Open houses:
October 6, 5–7 p.m., Festival Hall, 96 N Main, Cedar City
October 7, 5–7 p.m., Leeds Fire Station 47, 730 N Main
October 8, 5–7 p.m., Heritage Hall, Washington
October 14, virtual

Tell them to keep the towers on the developed corridor and leave Quichapa to the birds and the stock. Save rural Utah, starting here.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@BasedMikeLee SAVE Act

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@JesterJum Nothing wrong with a well seasoned filet but it ain’t even in the top five.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@beefinitiative Even now people buy horses they can’t afford to feed and turn them out. Everyone loves to see horses run free. You could make a case for descendants of Spanish ponies, not of depression era farm stock. Could be a managed resource instead they’re a feral infestation

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@beefinitiative Old timers used to turn out a decent stud now and then back when mustangin was a common activity. Good way to make a buck or keep fresh stock. A few filled their freezer on a really hard year. With “protection” the herds became too big, inbred and unhealthy.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@ccmembersonly Yes. Common in old fashioned country diners. Also called hot hamburger sandwich. In the mountain west at least.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@ccmembersonly Old favorite is hamburger steaks with milk gravy and mashed potatoes or brown gravy and hash browns. Side of steamed veggies all pretty quick and easy.

New fave is chicken pot pie from scratch. Time consuming but make ahead and feeeze is a lifesaver.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@chrishardman @BasedMikeLee Culturally, we still hold a lot of that area

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@dudefromthe303 Search starlink satellite train

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@dudefromthe303 Starlink

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@dudefromthe303 Saw them ten minutes ago southern Utah

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@hormonedietdoc 3-5 fried in bacon grease
4-7 omelette with tomato, basil and feta
6-♾️ scrambled with salsa, guac or cholula

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@BasedMikeLee @WallStreetMav @glennbeck @tedcruz @chiproytx @catturd2 @VivekGRamaswamy @Jim_Jordan @MarioNawfal @ClayTravis @BuckSexton ✋

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@SeedOilScout @reallytanman Rather than attempt to argue the finer molecular points, I like to point out that it tastes better, you’ll drink less, enjoy it more and feel better.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@tyromper I once heard, “The person you are when you’re driving is the person you are” Think of it every time I get on I15.

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@FitFounder Is there an upper limit for an active healthy person? Upped my daily from 5 to 10 a year ago and noticed better stamina/performance/ recovery. Maybe by %15-20

[Brad Wilcox @BradWilcoxIFS]

Utah now has a housing affordability problem in part because of lack of supply.

The "federal government manages 33.2 million acres in Utah, or 63% of the state."

The obvious solution is to make some of that land available for homesteading. @Dalrymple

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@cenkuygur Sure you can, cut spending!

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@justinamash One of our greatest presidents! The do nothing president

[Rustin @RustinLR]

@SenMikeLee Thank you for pulling it. Try again later n an individual bill and get the people’s support first. You’re not wrong but this was a massive boondoggle