**
Staff Writer
November 30, 2013
UTAH – In a follow-up to a story we covered last month…
A state legislator wants to make desecration of Utah’s natural geologic wonders punishable by prison and a heavy fine because authorities aren’t finding a charge serious enough to use in the case of two former Boy Scout leaders accused of toppling one of the unique rock formations at Goblin Valley State Park.
Rep. Dixon Pitcher, R-Ogden, said “there just isn’t much” in state law for use against the October toppling made infamous by a YouTube video. One Scout leader films the other pushing over a mushroom-shaped sandstone pillar and then they and another companion cheer and high-five.
They claimed it might have been ready to fall and kill a visitor. The rock formation they toppled was eroded from sandstone deposited about 170 million years ago, parks officials have said.
“We have nothing to deal with this type of desecration,” Pitcher said. “We can deal with graffiti, people who would cut down a tree, who do general vandalism, but we don’t have anything to deal with people who actually destroy geologic formations or antiquities in the parks. We have nothing to put the fear of God in them.”
It isn’t clear whether a garden-variety-level charge of criminal mischief applies to destruction of a natural object. The vandalism law has been used against people who carve graffiti or their names into the arches of southern Utah because officials could derive a value from erasing the damage, Emery County Attorney David Blackwell said.
Blackwell plans to consult with parks officials who investigated the Oct. 11 toppling and then make a decision the second week of December on possible charges. He wasn’t certain what action he might take. Blackwell said he was awaiting delivery of a report from investigators.
The video shot by David Hall shows Glenn Taylor pushing over the boulder. They were stripped of their Boy Scout leadership positions, and both say their video triggered death threats from around the world. Their troop was elsewhere at the state park during the filming, Blackwell said.
“We have now modified Goblin Valley,” Hall says on the video since removed from YouTube. “Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die, and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way. So it’s all about saving lives here at Goblin Valley. Saving lives, that’s what we’re about.”
To read the article, CLICK HERE.