Drill for oil on land not on sea

By John L. Anderson Salt Lake City

Editor:
I am shocked and dismayed by the destruction caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the big reasons for this disaster is the withdrawal of hundreds of millions of acres of land from oil exploration for wilderness acres and national monuments, etc. I cannot imagine why an oil company would spend billions of dollars sinking a one mile deep oil well out in the ocean if they could get the same production for a very small fraction of the cost to drill a similar well or wells on land if the land were open to oil exploration. It just makes no sense.
Land that has been turned into wilderness might just as well have all of the gooey, smelly sludge from this disaster dumped on it as the land has become worthless and unusable for any reasonable use. It as wilderness cannot create jobs or pay taxes. Just imagine how much tax money could be raised for the school system if millions of acres of land had not been removed from mining, oil exploration, and grazing cattle instead of denying the school system this much needed money by creating more wilderness. It makes no sense. To add insult to injury conservation groups are trying to get another 140,000 acres of public land withdrawn from oil exploration near Strawberry Reservoir. There is no end to their ridiculous demands, as well as 33,000 acres in Salt Lake County.