After four full years of podcasting, we bring you the most important episode to date to kick off Season 5. An interview with Sean Pond, the de facto leader of the Halt the Dolores Movement shares why stopping this National Monument designation in its tracks. Please listen on your favorite podcast app and follow-up with the Call to Action. Sean needs our help.
6:12 – what the Navy doesn’t tell you is that you’ll see a whole lot more water than you will see of the world
11:28 – I worked in building 771 at Rocky Flats, the most dangerous building in the world at the time
15:57 – if my close friends were to describe me, they’d tell you I do two things – I hunt and I wheel
23:11 – if you like to hunt and you like off-road and you like the thrill of the chase, it’s a hard habit to break
24:54 – HALT THE DOLORES – let’s talk about what it is and why it matters!
36:29 – it stifles ranching, mining, outdoor recreation, hunting – it affects so many people, it’s a shame
43:53 – google the 30 by 30 agenda and the America the Beautiful Act; over 100 million acres of public land will lose access to for all time
53:36 – if we were standing around at an event talking about this, you’d think it was a conspiracy theory
1:01:49 – CALL TO ACTION: Sign the petition, call your congressman, Share, Share, SHARE, help fund the fight
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
After four full years of podcasting, we bring you the most important episode to date to kick off Season 5. An interview with Sean Pond, the de facto leader of the Halt the Dolores Movement shares why stopping this National Monument designation in its tracks. Please listen on your favorite podcast app and follow-up with the Call to Action. Sean needs our help.
6:12 – what the Navy doesn’t tell you is that you’ll see a whole lot more water than you will see of the world
11:28 – I worked in building 771 at Rocky Flats, the most dangerous building in the world at the time
15:57 – if my close friends were to describe me, they’d tell you I do two things – I hunt and I wheel
23:11 – if you like to hunt and you like off-road and you like the thrill of the chase, it’s a hard habit to break
24:54 – HALT THE DOLORES – let’s talk about what it is and why it matters!
36:29 – it stifles ranching, mining, outdoor recreation, hunting – it affects so many people, it’s a shame
43:53 – google the 30 by 30 agenda and the America the Beautiful Act; over 100 million acres of public land will lose access to for all time
53:36 – if we were standing around at an event talking about this, you’d think it was a conspiracy theory
1:01:49 – CALL TO ACTION: Sign the petition, call your congressman, Share, Share, SHARE, help fund the fight
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:00.200]
Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.
[00:00:46.570]
Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.
[00:01:13.030]
Have you seen 4Low magazine yet? 4low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4LOW is the magazine for you. 4Low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.
[00:01:40.190] - Big Rich Klein
On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I interview an avid outdoorsman, a hunter, an off-road enthusiast, rock Crawler, and a gentleman that worked as an engineer in the mining industry, Sean Pond. Sean is a resident of the western slope of Colorado, and he is in a fight for our lives the way we know it and his own, and that is, he has started a movement called Halt the Dolores River Monument. I'd like everybody to make sure that they listen to this podcast, look for the information about Halt the Dolores River Monument, and sign the petition and help Sean and the people on the Western slope save public lands.
[00:02:27.100] - Big Rich Klein
Well, Sean, it's great to talk to you today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation, not only to learn more about you personally, but also to find out about the the halt of Dolores Monument that's coming, that you're fighting and I'm really looking forward to all this information we can get on you.
[00:02:48.650] - Big Rich Klein
So thank you for coming on.
[00:02:51.400] - Sean Pond
Thank you, Rich. Thanks for having us. And I'm looking forward to it as well.
[00:02:54.750] - Big Rich Klein
Well, let's get started at the easy part. Where were you born and raised?
[00:02:59.610] - Sean Pond
I I was born and raised in Western Colorado and Grand Junction, Colorado. Okay.
[00:03:05.650] - Big Rich Klein
And how long were you in that area? Because didn't you move to the front range for a while?
[00:03:12.450] - Sean Pond
I've moved a lot, to be honest, but I've always came back. I was born and raised there, went to school, graduated there, and then I joined the United States Navy at the age of 18 and was gone for four years during that time. Returned to Grand Junction, got married, got a job, worked for Department of Energy there, and had some kids, and then spent the first part of my career chasing the UMPER programs, which was actually a government-funded program, cleaning up radioactive waste in the form of mill tailings all across Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.
[00:03:49.670] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Let's talk about those early years growing up in the Grand Junction area. I would imagine that you spent That's a great area for outdoor activities, whether it's horseback riding, hiking, fishing, hunting. What things did you participate in?
[00:04:12.430] - Sean Pond
Everything you just said. I actually was fortunate enough to grow up for a horse in my childhood on a ranch, so spent a lot of years on the back of a horse, spent a lot of years on a dirt bike. I'm old enough, we didn't have a whole lot of ATVs back then. The three-wheelers were a little bit interesting. I have to watch my brother leave us some teeth on those things. Yeah, I know all of that. Outdoor recreation is a huge part and was a larger part back in those days of any of us out here. I'm, again, old enough to remember when Grand Junction did not have a mall. So there wasn't a lot of downtown times. It was mostly out in the woods, some form of a hoofed animal in the seat of a pickup truck or a Jeep.
[00:04:59.200] - Big Rich Klein
At what age did you start working for a wage? Was it young or were you working on a ranch?
[00:05:09.190] - Sean Pond
I'm trying to pick that answer. I think I was milking cows when I was eight. So yeah, I know. Working on that is always a part of daily life. I think I got my first job at a Dairy Queen, actually, when I was 15. I was trying to save for a car. Pretty much had my boots on the ground since then.
[00:05:28.280] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. And you You said you graduated there in Grand Junction, and did you play sports at all?
[00:05:38.880] - Sean Pond
Yeah, I played football and I wrestled.
[00:05:41.500] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. And what position did you play in football?
[00:05:45.560] - Sean Pond
Quarterback.
[00:05:46.490] - Big Rich Klein
Very good. That makes sense now. Okay. You're a born leader, organizer. That's what quarterbacks end up being.
[00:05:57.570] - Sean Pond
Never looked at myself that way, to be honest with you.
[00:05:59.740] - Big Rich Klein
Well, you're proving it right now. So when you said you got into the Navy, did you get to see the world or were you stuck here in stateside?
[00:06:12.300] - Sean Pond
Oh, no. The Navy, they'll tell you you get to see the world, and it's a true statement, but they don't tell you that you'll see a whole lot more water than you do world. But no, I was fortunate enough to be on several cruises, stationed out of Norfolk, Virginia. Got to see a whole lot of that side the world. Actually, spent 118 days in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Shield, which was the predecessor to Operation Desert Storm. I got to see a whole lot of different places, a whole lot of different cultures, and grew to love this country much more based upon the observations I had in foreign places.
[00:06:50.730] - Big Rich Klein
It's one of the things that drives me nuts is when people complain about how America is and how it's not fair or whatever. I don't think those people have ever traveled outside of the United States.
[00:07:09.980] - Sean Pond
I would agree with that. I've been to a lot of really cool places, and I've been fortunate in my life to see a lot of different lifestyles and different cultures. I can tell you, in my humble opinion, there is absolutely no place like United States of America. It's truly the richest and the freest, only free place on the on the globe, in my opinion.
[00:07:32.140] - Big Rich Klein
I agree. So four years in the Navy, you get out, and what was the next step?
[00:07:43.830] - Sean Pond
I was married, didn't have kids yet, and got out and tried to find a job. I was lucky enough to have an aunt in Grand Junction, Colorado, that worked as a Department of Energy, the compound there in Grand Junction. She got me on there working in Radiological Health and Safety Department. That got me into my first career. Spent quite a few years there. Chased the umpter programs around Western Colorado and Eastern Utah, worked at Mexican Hat in Lehman Valley. Actually, over here in the Naturita nuclear area, I worked at Eurovan on the second D&D program. Finishing up that program, it's a Premnish explains it. The first process with Urovan was a super fun process, which they cleaned it up and they remediated most of the town, the mill itself. Then the Umpra program started in the town of Naturita nuclear. I came in here, actually lived in a hotel down here in Naturita for a couple of years, driving back home to Grand Junction while we remediated the towns. The mill tailings that came out of the milling process, it was a sand, the byproduct. That sand was a a low-level radioactive waste. It wasn't high-grade.
[00:09:04.120] - Sean Pond
The sand was given away from these mill sites, and they mixed it in concrete, which wouldn't great for sidewalks and foundations and footings in schools. They lined a city utility these all over. Grand Junction was an epicenter of that, so all over the place. But Naturita to Nucla, they brought me down here to Uravan for a couple of years, remedian the town of Naturita to Nucla and out to VCA and doing the second phase of the site for the Uravan process.
[00:09:32.410] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. You said you were married. So you got married while you were in the Navy or before the Navy?
[00:09:39.590] - Sean Pond
That's correct. I married a girl that I guess would have been my high school sweetheart. We had a couple of kids that ended up getting divorced in later years. Okay.
[00:09:48.730] - Big Rich Klein
All right. Then, so you're working for the Department of Energy, you're moving, you're doing cleanup, basically. Not really, was it like Superfund considerations or was it not- Some of them.
[00:10:03.110] - Sean Pond
I worked for several different companies back in the day, like Bartlett Nuclear Federal Services. They changed names a lot. They got bought and sold. But yeah, it was different funding avenues for sure. But wherever they had some a low-level radioactive waste cleanup, typically where I went. Then after that, I transferred to Rocky Flats over on the Denver, on the front range by Denver, outside of Denver there, and worked worked several different projects, including Building 771, which was labeled as the most dangerous building in the world at that time. It was a D&D, a demolition/demolish project. That's actually where I met the love of my life, Danielle Pond, my current wife. She was working over there. We met 20-some years ago. Then after we left Rocky Flats, we transferred to Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho. We're up there for a number of years carrying out nuclear reactors.
[00:11:02.130] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. I'm very familiar with the one in Idaho because it's there between or north of Blackfoot and Idaho Falls.
[00:11:11.760] - Sean Pond
That's correct. Yeah, we lived in Menan, Idaho Falls, at a Pocatello at different times while we were up there. Okay.
[00:11:19.430] - Big Rich Klein
What made that building so dangerous?
[00:11:28.190] - Sean Pond
Rocky Flats, at that time, they manufactured different components for nuclear bombs. So they manufactured triggers there and other things. And in building 771, they actually had a glovebox fire at some point in history. I could have told you 20 years ago, the date that happened, but I don't recall now. And that fire got out of control, and they ended up just sealing that portion of the building. They literally encased it in concrete and just left it. If I remember right, it was an electrical fire. And they referred to that That room is the infinity room, meaning that the detectable levels of contamination or radiation were off the charts. You couldn't even quantify what they were. That room ended up being sealed and untouched for lots and lots of years until we actually opened it up and cleaned it up, encapsulated it and removed it. So it was a fun, interesting project.
[00:12:25.600] - Big Rich Klein
Wow, that does sound interesting. I I believe that nuclear energy is a clean and safe way to provide energy. I think it's better myself than solar or wind. But I don't know. I'm not an expert by any means.
[00:12:49.130] - Sean Pond
No, and neither am I. But I would tell you that during my first career, I've been out of it for a while now, but it was labeled then by the environmental activists as unclean and unsafe. Unfortunately, there were some catastrophes around the world that I think led to that labeling. It's funny now because we flash forward 25, 30 years, and it's now embraced by the environmental activists as the new path forward for green energy. I actually agree. That's part of the reason that we're doing what we're doing over here in the West End, trying to protect the largest and richest uranium and vanadium site in the world, actually, or the United States, Right.
[00:13:31.160] - Big Rich Klein
Because if we close all that down and make it so we can't get to it, it becomes unattainable. Then if we go to nuclear energy, then we have to source those energy products from outside of the United States, which leaves us vulnerable to foreign powers.
[00:13:55.300] - Sean Pond
Correct. I actually see two different paths on that, either unobtainable as you suggested, which is a real possibility, or the other possibility is it's only obtainable by the federal government and removed from free enterprises' ability to extract those minerals. So there's two paths there that are a possibility, and I don't like either one of them. Right.
[00:14:15.600] - Big Rich Klein
I agree. So you ended up over there in Idaho and on the front range of Colorado, and then you got back over to the Western Range?
[00:14:31.790] - Sean Pond
No, another different step in there. I was currently working in Idaho as a supervisor at an area called Test area North. We were taken out a nuclear reaction facility up there, and I was trying to hire a foreman and a guy that I'd work with at Rocky Flats. I called him and offered him a job and was trying to get him to come to Idaho and work with us. And he told me that he couldn't. He had just taken a job in the oil and gas industry. And over this course of me trying to hire him, he ended up telling me about his new job and his new career. I ended up saying, Hey, who do I call? And he ended up getting me a job. I ended up quitting Idaho, and my wife and I moved back to Grand Junction. And my wife and I and the kids. I went to Houston, Texas, for about nine months. Went to school and ended up changing my career to a drilling fluids engineer. At that time, I was employed by M-I Swacko, it's a slumberger company, and started my second career working in oil and gas as a drilling fluids engineer on various rig locations throughout Colorado and New Mexico and Utah.
[00:15:41.890] - Big Rich Klein
During all this time, what activities were you into outside of work? When did you get involved in off-road and hunting? Or what hunting did you continue?
[00:15:57.880] - Sean Pond
I've been hunting my entire life. It's If somebody were to describe me, any of my close friends, they'd tell you I do two things. I hunt and I wheel, I rock, crawl. So hunting has always been something I've done. I took my first mule deer at the age of 14, and I've hunted religiously at every opportunity and do that in many different countries. So I've been blessed in that regard. And then off roading, I grew up in Grand Junction, a short drive from Moab, Utah. So as soon as I could get something that had four wheels and hubs, man, I was in it. Ended up my first, I guess, serious vehicle. I had an '85 Toyota pickup that I could have the 4.3 Chevy Vortec in and started destroying Burfield as fast as I could turn the wheels, I think. But a lot of fun in those days. We had a lot of good times. Actually, they did a couple of... Peterson's Off-Road magazine did a couple of photoshoots and articles on that truck. It was a pretty impressive vehicle for the day. So no, it's... And then this time frame, I don't even... I lost track of how many Jeeps I've had over my life.
[00:17:05.290] - Sean Pond
And then one day, I stopped by this guy's shop in Moab, Utah, named Kevin Carroll. Kevin Carroll took me for a ride in one of his red dot engineering cars, and I was lost. That hooked me and gave me a new disease that I can't shake off to this day.
[00:17:26.970] - Big Rich Klein
That big trail busting.
[00:17:29.830] - Sean Pond
Man, he was a unique individual, and I had a lot of fun with that guy in a lot of different places. It opened up to a whole new world and a lot of friends that are like-minded across this country. As you know, that world of rock crawling is ever-growing and ever-changing. Even the red-dock cars that were so special 10 years ago, which they're still a fantastic car, the Jesse Haynes with his portals and all these different people building quality chassis and putting cars together, it's impressive. I can't imagine what it's going to look like in 10 more years.
[00:18:09.600] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, innovation is incredible across the sport of rock crawling. I remember When we got started back in the day, 2000, well, when the rock crawling scene, competitive scene started in '98, '99, everybody was pretty much... There wasn't There were very few buggies. Everything was full-bodied, framed. And then we started getting into tube chassis and everything that's come along from that. And we borrowed a lot of the desert racing ideas, but turned them into going slow. And then with the innovations that have come from now going fast with King of the Hammers and what we did it Dirt Riott and those racing. With the four-wheel drives, the innovation, again, worked its way back over into off-road racing to where there's the Mason trucks with the four-wheel drive that are now holding up. Nobody built four-wheel drive vehicles before that. I mean, the first and only one really was either factory rigs like the Broncos or the Blazers that were on leaf springs or not I mean, they were capable, but they were not like they are nowadays. And now they've got the Mason four-wheel drive trucks that are quite capable, and the top guys are running those.
[00:19:45.000] - Sean Pond
Yeah, it's impressive to watch the evolution of the industry for sure. There's two different... We're talking about guys that are going really fast. King of the Hammers is such a unique event. If you haven't been, I suggest everybody should go. But you're watching these guys do incredible speeds through the loops, out through the open flats in the desert, and then to the rock crawling session where they're actually doing technical rock crawling. It's a one of a kind event. If people haven't been, they really should go. It'll change the way you look at the outdoor industry and off outdoor rock crawling and outdoor racing industry.
[00:20:18.400] - Big Rich Klein
I agree. So let's transition. I know that you've been... One of the hunting that you do that intrigues me is the cat, the big cats. Talk about that a little bit, because all that's in the news now with the attack that happened in Northern California. What attracts you to the cat hunting?
[00:20:49.470] - Sean Pond
I'll take you back to when I was working over here in Eurovan. I was probably, I'm going to say 25-ish years old and was working over here. One of the guys that I hired, a young man, his father-in-law had hounds. One weekend, he said, Hey, I'm going to go out with my father-in-law and go catch a lion. I said, You're going to do what? He said, They're going to catch lion. I thought, Mountain lion? I never even seen one. I thought, Heck, yeah, I want to go. Got this gracious open invite, jumped in a pickup truck, and went out with them. On that first time, I was lucky in enough to actually catch a lion, not myself, the dog, and be a part of that. We put this beautiful creature up in a tree. Again, like the first time I got in a red dot with Kevin Carroll, when you look When you got up in your tree and you looked in the eyes of a mountain lion, and it's probably the greatest apex predator in North America, in my opinion, it's an addiction again. Same too. I was hooked, started going every chance I could with these people.
[00:21:59.890] - Sean Pond
They drove Toyota pickups because when you're lion hunting, you do some pretty technical rock crawling, getting in some of that country trying to chase these dogs and these lions. So they go hand in hand. You're getting an awesome off-road experience with a hunting experience. So that's me. That's my hook. When I met these guys, I was driving a GPJ7, and they had a Toyota pickup with dog boxes. And to be honest with you, I couldn't keep up with them sometimes, and it took me a while in my young year to figure out it was weight when you're pushing that snow. I ended up with this Toyota pickup, 85 Toyota pickup, that later became my first rock Crawler, a unique story. I ended up getting this addiction, chasing these lion and watching the dogs work. To be very clear, the passion for me is watching these well-trained dogs work. It's nothing about harvesting or even killing. It's about watching the dogs work, getting out in the rocks, on ground with these predators. I compare it to a chess game. When you have a good, well-trained dog and the dogs love to do what they do, it's a game of cat and mouse.
[00:23:11.170] - Sean Pond
It's a chess game. It's a poker game. Sometimes you win, and be honest, most times we don't. They're a unique animal. I've been doing it since then, so probably 25 years. I've had hounds and been fortunate enough to catch them in a lot of really cool places. My I remember back when I first started, you didn't have quota pools here in Colorado. You could just buy a license and go. In Utah, there was pursuit permits for lion and bear. So we all go over to Lake La Salza in Utah, spring and summer, and run our dogs over there and catch bear as long as it's lion because they'll be the same. It takes your life over. And again, you're able to get out into the woods, into these wild public places on open roads and pursue lion while you're in an off-road vehicle. So it's an avenue. If you like to hunt and you like off-road and you like the thrill of the chase, it's a hard habit to break.
[00:24:14.660] - Big Rich Klein
And all these roads that you guys were traveling on were the 2477s, right?
[00:24:21.780] - Sean Pond
Correct. Okay.
[00:24:23.580] - Big Rich Klein
Rs2477, Designation Roads. Okay. Let's Let's get now into the halt, the Dolores Monument, and how this all of a sudden just popped up basically on everybody's radar out of nowhere. So you want to walk us through how you found out about what's going on and what you guys are working to do?
[00:24:54.180] - Sean Pond
Yeah, absolutely. So there's two different stories to be told there, and I'll tell the one how I found out, and I'll tell the one about how they should have told us. On February 18th, I had stopped by a local ranching family's ranch just to say hi and visit with them. They handed me a map and it said Dolores River Canyon National Monument proposal. He asked me if I had seen this or if I had known about this, and I had not. That was on a Sunday. He said, Well, they came to his house and they were showing it to them, they being the proponents, the people that are trying to push this. There's a whole bunch of people behind it that we can talk about as we go along. But they came to this ranching family's house, sat at their dinner table, handed them this map and said, Hey, this is coming. This is what we want to do. We're here to assure you it will not affect your cattle grazing allocations. They were really concerned about it affecting their livelihood and their well-being because all of their cattle allocations were inside this 500,000 acre proposed monument boundary.
[00:26:06.990] - Sean Pond
He handed it to me and he asked me if I'd mind spreading the word around town because if you know ranchers, they're not around town much. He just asked a friend to spread the word. The following day, my wife and I did a lot of online research trying to figure out and learn about this Dolores River Canyon National Monument proposal and about the 20 or so special interest groups behind it to educate ourselves because we didn't know anything about it. We'd also been told that there were some other people in our community that had known about it, not a lot, very few, via the same action that these proponents were talking to select individual trying to get support for it. Nobody had raised the red flag. My wife, the next day on Monday, called various community leaders around Brooklyn, Naderita, and the west end of Montrose County to let them know. That was her effort of starting the ball rolling. By Tuesday, I thought, You know what? I could start a petition. I never started a petition before. I looked at change. Org, had never done it before, and I took an hour and wrote up a petition concern and submitted that petition online and started sharing it on our social media pages.
[00:27:29.630] - Sean Pond
We We were fortunate to have, I guess, I had 2,700 followers on my Facebook account alone, primarily because of the outdoor rock crawling industry that you're a part of. I had a lot of friends from the country that followed me, and I followed them because we like to watch each other's wheel or what sales were on or what car we have this weekend. We walk in this room however that may end. I think I started the petition and it took It blew up and way above my anticipation. I didn't realize how big it could get so quickly to the point that within, I'd say, the first week, we had several thousand signatures in opposition of the monument. That prompted change. Org to start contacting different journalists around the country. I had journalists calling me and we were writing letters, and it just kept cartwheeling. It just kept growing momentum. I think today, between the online petition, which is about 6,400 signatures today, and the physical paper petition that we've been taking around and getting assigned, were somewhere around 7,500 signatures in opposition of the proposed Dolores River Canyon National Monument. We're getting some traction and people are starting to get involved.
[00:28:53.050] - Sean Pond
We're trying to do some fundraising to hire attorneys for litigation. It In all honesty, it's taken over our lives in a way that we didn't anticipate. We didn't know it was coming. It wasn't planned. I can promise you that. We all have jobs. It's put us into a spotlight talking to people. I'm not somebody that likes to speak in public. I don't prefer crowds. I prefer quiet places. But that's what we're doing. We've had a bunch of community meetings since that first day the petition was started. I'd say within the first week, we were asked to come to the small town of Gateway, over on the Utah state line and give a presentation to concerned residents of the community in Gateway. We probably had about, I'm going to say, 125-ish people in attendance, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the entire population of Gateway, so it was a pretty good turnout.
[00:29:49.660] - Big Rich Klein
I was going to say I didn't think Gateway even had that many people. It doesn't look like it when you drive through there.
[00:29:56.100] - Sean Pond
True story. Well, a lot of those are ranchers and farmers and people that are concerned about their livelihood. I'm sure some of those were up in the 141 corridor and surrounding areas, so people were out in the canyon areas. But regardless, every one of them that came in was a stakeholder. They lived there, they're concerned about it, and we just told them what we knew. We were only a week or two into it, so we didn't have a lot of information. One key point to that meeting was at some point in time, we had to question and answer a session after the meeting, and an individual in the crowd raised his hand and he turned around and addressed the 125-ish people. How many people in that room that lived in the epicenter of this monument proposal were aware of the monument designation proposal before that day? One person raise their hand. That's a key factor because the proponents of this Dolores Monument proposal, they had been doing this for a number of years. They had been growing their, I guess, support and very key, very low-key areas. Their community meetings were in Boulder and Steemboat Springs and Durango and Denver and even Grand Junction.
[00:31:09.570] - Sean Pond
They were doing it behind our backs. They weren't telling the people most affected. In other words, they haven't had one meeting here in Gateway or Paradox or Bedrock or Nucla or Naderita when we live here. They were doing it, I guess, in a dirty fashion, staying quiet behind it. There was no No advertisements. They're going to tell you that they tried to have community outreach notification, but it's simply not true. So that's the second part of that is they're not being honest, and we're trying to be as open and honest as we possibly can. Then our second community outreach meeting was in the small town of Naderita, Colorado, probably 10 days after we learned about the proposal. That one surprised me. We had over 300 people in attendance. We actually were lucky enough to use the old Naderita Elementary School Gymnasium. It was a blessing that occurred, I think, at the same time. We had a lot of good people, got a lot of information, but the acoustics in that gym were so horrible. It was hard for people to hear us. That was the bad part of it. That started it. Those people shared the petition.
[00:32:21.740] - Sean Pond
They ended up on social media. They ended up being in the newspaper. We actually had, I think, four county commissioners from different counties show up at that meeting. The word started to spread. Started to get some traction and some momentum. About that same time, we had created a Halt the Dolores Monument Facebook page, and it was created by a gal here in our local chamber of commerce. I'm going to say within the first 10 days, we went up to 1,500 followers on that page. For some reason, her page got taken down. When they took her personal Facebook page down, it also took down the Halt to Dolores page, which Danny and my wife and I were moderators on, and we got locked out of it. So that stifled the growth on that page, and it's still there. The Hall to Dolores Monument page is still there, but none of us have access. We can't share on it anymore. And it was right after the Naderita meeting. You can look at that page online and you'll see the last post was that date of the meeting, and then she was hacked and lost access to her account.
[00:33:26.490] - Sean Pond
So then we had another local lady that took up a second Her name was Katie Herland. She's a stakeholder. Her ranch is right in the middle of the Dolores Monument boundary, proposed boundary. She took up another page. Four days in, she was hacked, and her page was taken down.
[00:33:44.520] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:33:45.210] - Sean Pond
I started a halt to Dolores' page, and I did my very best to protect that page by doing some two-step authentication, and I thought I had it protected as best I could. We quickly drew that page to about 1,700 followers. I shared equally across my personal Facebook page and that page until this Sunday, on March 31st, I went to log into my account and I could no longer get into that account. I was hacked on Sunday. I don't even know if you know this. My personal Facebook page, which was Sean, with my middle initial M, Pond, was in fact hacked and taken from me on this past Sunday. I still have access to it. It's still there, but it's not me. And that in turn, they took over the Hall to Dolores page, which is still there and I don't have access to. So I find it incredibly ironic that all three of us in this very small area involved in the same exact movement for this monument have all been a victim of hacking and had our social media accounts disrupted. People would say, Well, it happens all the time, but I find that to be incredibly ironic that the three of us with that page would have had been hacked and taken over.
[00:35:01.100] - Sean Pond
So I'll leave that up to the listeners' imagination, but it definitely puts a grind you stopped or growing. I went from 2,700 followers on my personal page, and I think it's 1,500 or 1,700 on the halt of Dolores page, and I have none now. So I started a new page, and I've got, I think, 202 friends or something. So every time we start to gain traction or start to get a little momentum, I guess Two comments on that. One is we must be making a difference that they don't like because they keep taking us down. But it also effectively silences our voices temporarily. So getting the word out to people like you and your listeners is huge for us because we have to start all over and tell people to please search for the Hall for Dolores Monument petition and sign it and share it and help let everybody know that this is coming. They're trying to steal a half a million acres from the American people, which obviously affects all of us local in this area, but it affects everybody throughout the state and everybody across the country. For all of the things that we've talked about, there are the Rim Rocker Jeep Trail, the Calamity Canyon Jeep Trail, and literally thousands of roads that are open, BLM-managed roads are going to be shut down and locked out for all of us.
[00:36:29.260] - Sean Pond
It's generations. That stifles ranching, it stifles mining, it stifles outdoor recreation, hunting. It affects so many people. It's a shame.
[00:36:42.170] - Big Rich Klein
It's going to affect river access. An individual, like to say myself, if I have a raft and I want to go raft the Dolores or kayak it or however I want to enjoy it, they're going to turn it into a pay to play, correct?
[00:37:00.250] - Sean Pond
Correct. Well, the Dolores is a strange place. The proponents of the monument, one of those is the Dolores River Boating Advocates. Then there are several other ones there, too. Cody Perry out of Durango and Amber Clarke out of Durango. They're backing this. They would tell you they made a movie called The River of Sorrows, and they're playing it whenever they have these agendas trying to get support, and they show this sad river with no water flows. It's true. The water flows, it doesn't flow all the time. Maybe once every five years, there's actually enough water to raft. I've flown over that. When it's prime rafting season, and these boaters are literally camped on every free spot of beach for the entire length of the river. They just show up and they pack it and they float it, and it's done for another year, two or three. If you take the fact that they already boat it in great numbers, in my opinion, too many of them, and then you take the fact that they want to try to privatize that, and I would justify that statement by, if you want to put your boat or your kayak or your canoe on the river right now, today, and there's enough water, you just go to the boat launch and you put your boat in, your flocaution device, and you float the canyon.
[00:38:24.200] - Sean Pond
If they actually make this a monument in order to control activities, they will have to make that a an application process to obtain a permit like the Grand Canyon or like the Green River in Utah. Sometimes those 7, 8, 9, 10-year waits to try to get a permit to float that. It boggles my mind that these people that are backing this, they're trying to line their own pockets with a presidential proclamation. It's wrong. It's unjust. But that's just one of them. The voting is definitely going to be affected. I think the biggest thing I'd point out is this is if you take away all the layers of conservation and preservation and protection that these special interest groups and activists lay over this proposal, The clearest one in my brain, and I've been talking to people, I can show them and prove it to them, is this is in fact, an anti-mining campaign with a whole lot of other agendas behind it. But one of the biggest backers was called the Sheep Mountain Alliance, and they're an anti-mining, anti-logging, anti-organization out of Telluride, Colorado. And they've been at every one of the meetings. They're pushing it.
[00:39:39.020] - Sean Pond
They're well-funded. I mean, there are hundreds of millions of dollars in backing. I'm trying to think of which story to tell that relates to it. I'll just tell you this one. When I went to the Montrose County Commissioners meeting a couple of Mondays ago, I've seen on their agenda that the proponents of the monument were going to be presenting to the Montrose County Commissioners the monument itself. After they were done and they laid their map up there, this 500,000 acre map that is titled the Dolores River Canyon National Monument, but in fact is 20 miles outside of the River Canyon. It doesn't go any... It's not in the River Canyon. If it was, we would probably be having a much different conversation today, but it's massive. I had taken the liberty of going on to the Secretary of Energy's website in Washington, DC, and located the map called the Eurovan Uranium Mineral Belt. I printed that map out and taken it with me to that meeting. After the gentleman had completed When I did his presentation and the commissioners had the map in front of them, I asked to come forward and I handed them the map of the Eurovan Uranium Mineral Belt, and I asked them to lay it over the top.
[00:40:57.880] - Sean Pond
It was very clear it looked I realized someone took a crayon and traced the exact Eurovan uranium Mineral Belt, and that is the proposed boundary. It's evident. Then if you go to any of their social media sites like the Colorado Wildlands Foundation, rig to flip, whatever that means, is the Dolores River button advocates. Every one of those sites says that they are trying to protect this area from future mining. This Eurovan uranium Mineral Belt is the largest and the richest uranium and vanadium Mineral Belt in the United States. Their goal is to stop all future mining. We already talked about them taking went out of the process for future clean energy use. There was only 7% of enriched uranium that was processed and purchased in the United States last year, 7%. Most of it came Australia, Canada, or Russia. The United States of America paid Russia $800 million for enriched uranium last year, $800 million. We're getting ready to watch these environmental activists lock up the largest and richest uranium belt in the United States. We need someone to draw attention to that because it's got to be above the left-leaning politicians in Colorado, and we've got to draw attention to it.
[00:42:29.340] - Sean Pond
People need to understand what's happening over here, these atrocities that are affecting outdoor recreation, off-road recreation, mining, ranchers. It's so scary and so big. I can't stream it loud enough to people. That's why we're on that. In the discovery portion of what my wife and I and this other group of people we have, we found out, to the best of our knowledge right now, that there are 24 proposed include national monuments across the country. I'm fighting one of these local in my backyard, but there are 24, at least, about more groups just like me across the country. I've spoke to some of them. I spoke to a gentleman down in Luna, New Mexico last week. Their story, if he was on your podcast right beside me and told you about their monument proposal, it's identical to the one I'm telling you. There's this huge movement to preserve and protect public lands from the Biden administration under the America the Beautifuls Act, which is part of the 30 by 30 agenda, that they're locking out, taking away, shutting down public land for all of us, for all United States citizens. People need to be made aware of it.
[00:43:53.250] - Sean Pond
They need to Google the 30 by 30 agenda. They need to Google the America, the Beautiful Act. Because these 24 monuments that I'm telling people about, they total more than 100 million acres of public land that we're going to lose access to, us today, future generations, and for all time. What happens when these monument designations come to fruition via the Antiquities Act of 1906, the president, with his pen, signs it and it's done. That proclamation, which is an abuse of power, and it shouldn't give that much power to a sitting president, in my humble opinion. But that monument designation is permanent. It's there and it's done. That starts a NEPA investigation, and that generates a new travel management plan from the managing agency, whichever that is, whether it be the BLM or the National Park Service or whomever. If you look at the history of monument designations over time, and it's been done by 18 sitting presidents, 161 times to create monuments, They start out with restrictions and limitations. Over the course of time, as more and more and more people come there, and as they're designed to do, they increase more and more and more limits and restrictions.
[00:45:13.590] - Sean Pond
The goal there is common. It's to reach a wilderness destination. They want it to be a wilderness area. They want to stop people from going there. They want to stop human activity on public lands. When people realize this and they get involved, and if I could just get them to take 10 minutes out of their day and research it and take the shutters off their eyes and see what's really happening out here in the West, they need to get involved. They need to make their voices heard. They need to understand. I guess I would ask people to look at the Western half of the United States. If I was to ask me how much public land is there east of Denver? Not much, right? If any. How much public land is there, say, south of New Mexico. Texas doesn't have any public land, right? Keep in mind, if you go back a few hundred years, this was all public land. It was encouraged by the federal government to be settled. It's been settled to a point where the only public land that exists is here in the Western states, and it's under attack. They don't want it to be public.
[00:46:25.290] - Sean Pond
They want to limit or stop all human use of public lands. And unless all of us get involved and stand up and be aware of what's happening, they're going to do it, in my opinion.
[00:46:43.840] - Big Rich Klein
So let's talk about the difference between a monument and a national park.
[00:46:52.810] - Sean Pond
So the difference would be the managing agency. So in this case, the proponents are staying, and we don't know for sure because there's no plan in the proposal, that it would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. I guess you could use the Bear's Ears National Monument in Utah that's been a controversy since 2008. As an example, So that one is managed by the BLM, and you can look at, you can Google a quick Google search to spend all over the news of how that's taking place versus, say, a National Park managed area like Rocky Mountain National Park. So they all have different restrictions in the way they're used. I guess an example of that would be, and I'll throw in their National Conservation areas to NCA's. They're all managed differently. So let's say, I'll use an NCA as an an apple real quick instead of the National Park. A National Conservation area, in my opinion, and I guess I'll say in our opinion, our group, is probably a proper channel for an environmental group that really and truly cares about conservation preservation and protection. I'll say that because an NCA takes into account public input, it takes into account stakeholder input, and it takes into all of this gathering of information.
[00:48:16.580] - Sean Pond
What I mean by stakeholder input, let's say you're a rancher in the boundary of a proposed national conservation area. Because it's an NCA or a national conservation area, as a stakeholder, as a ranch owner, landowner, you you get to write in your concerns into the plan. So you can say, Hey, this is what's important to me, to my ranching livelihood. This is what we can put into this proposal to where it doesn't hurt me, doesn't damage me. And all of those writings and agreements from all these different stakeholders, it could be from a mining company, it could be from a local Jeep club trying to make sure their Jeep trail stays open, or a local rock crawling group that had a canyon they like to wheel. All of these things get put into a national conservation area That plan is then carried into the floor of Congress by whoever represents it. In our case here in Colorado, for one of our NCD, it was Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. Then that bill now has Congressional oversight. That bill can be passed and bam, you have a National Conservation Area with all of the forementioned individuals' input put in.
[00:49:24.770] - Sean Pond
That's something that I think we think you could get better bipartisan support of because people get to have their peace. They get to say it. They get to protect the things individually or from a business or from a group standpoint. The difference between that and a national monument, again, presidential proclamations, Abusing the Antiquities Act of 1906, you just get someone like a Democratic senator who carries it to President Joe Biden, and he signs it. He could sign it tomorrow. In all honesty, to take all the BS out of it. If President Joe Biden wanted to sign a proclamation tomorrow declaring all public lands in the United States as national monuments, he could. That is not above the power of the President using the Antiquities Act of 1906.
[00:50:19.350] - Big Rich Klein
But that's way overreach because the Antiquities Act says it's to be limited to the Antiquities in the area.
[00:50:32.120] - Sean Pond
The smallest amount of land possible should be secured to protect the Antiquity. It's a roundabout way of the definition. Correct. No, you're right. So there are currently litigation, one from a rancher in Arizona and more than the Blue Ribbon Coalition in Utah, that are exactly that. They are a lawsuit against the Biden administration, accusing an overreach and an abuse of power using the Antiquities Act of 1906. They're great litigation pieces. They're true, they're accurate, they're factual. We just need the Supreme Court of the United States of America to call that up, to look at it, and to rule on it. What that litigation states, and I've got copies of it, is they're asking the Supreme Court to either, one, do away with the Antiquities Act of 1906 and make all monument proclamations go through Congress, or they're asking them to redefine the Antiquities Act with verbiage that makes them adhere to the original definition as President Theodore Roosevelt created it for, being the minimal amount of use to be taken. The point of that is it wasn't there to take public land away from all Americans. It was there to protect things that needed protected.
[00:51:59.410] - Sean Pond
It had a It had a purpose. I personally think that if President Roosevelt knew how it was being abused today, he'd probably roll over in his grave.
[00:52:08.150] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. It's like the Devil's Tower up there. That's a national monument in South Dakota. If that was not the case and had not been protected, more than likely somebody would have built a resort around it, on it, whatever, and made it a piece of private property, a pay to go see, not to preserve.
[00:52:43.950] - Sean Pond
Correct. No, the Attiquities Act, as designed by one of the greatest presidents of our time or of our country, it had a purpose. It had a viable meaning that it was meant to do something useful and beautiful. It was never meant to be abused as it has been, I'm What if they since the Clinton era? You look at Clinton, Obama, and Biden, they've created more national monuments than all the others combined. It's an overreach of power. And I can only hope and pray that at some point in time, one of these pieces of legislation will be called up by the Supreme Court and they can rule on it accordingly.
[00:53:20.550] - Big Rich Klein
Let's talk about the driving force behind all of this with the Biden administration, and that being the 30 30/30 proclamation and where that originated at.
[00:53:36.440] - Sean Pond
So the 30 by 30 initiative, I would back up a little bit, Rich, to say that if I was telling you this conversation, if you and I were standing at one of the We Rock events like we have in the past and just having a buddy conversation. And I would have had somebody say to me, Hey, what do you know about that 30 by 30 initiative? I would have probably thought, Man, that guy's crazy. That's like some conspiracy theory or something. But I can tell you today, it's not. And it's unfortunately, with all of these activities happening, I've researched it. And anybody listening to this can do a quick Google search and read on it. And I encourage them to do that. So the 30 by 30 agenda was started by the United Nations as an act to protect 30% of all lands and all waters by the year 2030. Now, keep in mind, when they say protect, what they mean is lock out, privatize, take people off of it. No mining, no oil and gas exploration, no outdoor recreation, no hunting, no fishing, no human activity. You can look at if people watch in the news, you see someplace in Europe or the Netherlands with farmers blocking the highways in protest.
[00:54:46.670] - Sean Pond
That's because this is happening on every continent across the world. It's not just here. The 30 by 30 agenda was put into place by President Biden in 2021, and he titled it the America, the Beautiful Act. And again, if anybody watched his address to the nation here a couple, two or three weeks ago, I actually recorded it, and he said, in our nation's capital, behind the podiums, at his address to the nation, that they will continue to preserve and protect 30% of all lands and all waters by the year 2030. So this is a globally driven agenda that was put in place by the United Nations to combat climate change. And we all have our different opinions on climate I think it changes every day when I wake up, but it's real. That's what's happening right now is the 30 by 30. Protect 30% of all lands and all waters by the year 2030. You know what follows the 30 by 30 initiative is the 50 by 50 initiative. That's 50% of all lands and all waters locked up by the year 2050. We can't get the silent majority, the people out there, the hard working, conservative people to do some research, educate themselves, get involved, sign petitions, contribute, help us pay for our lawyers.
[00:56:10.140] - Sean Pond
If we can't get these people to do this, then we're just yelling at an empty room. There's nobody there to listen to. So it's trying to get people engaged, trying to get people involved to open their eyes and see what's really happening across this country and vote. Good drinks, man. People have got to understand there's 43 % of registered voters voted in the last election. We've got to understand that people got to know that their vote matters. It's their responsibility. And all of these things that we're talking about, we can have an effect on as a populace, if we get involved, you show up, you stand up, you speak up and you vote. We really can make a difference.
[00:56:52.760] - Big Rich Klein
Right. I agree 100 % on that. And it just amazes me that To think that worldwide, that they want to eliminate people from enjoying or having access to open lands, not just here in the United States, but other places across the world. I mean, all other places across the world with a UN agenda like that.
[00:57:25.290] - Sean Pond
It's a true story. I've been to a whole lot of different I've been to every county commission meeting in Western Colorado at least once in the last month, and I've listened to these environmental activists give their proposals for different things. In their entire proposal, there's only one word that ever rings true to me, and that's the word control. They want to control. They want control. In the United States, the federal government wants to control all public lands. If you look at the 30 by 30 agenda, the United Nations in different countries, they want to control. When people realize that there is an entity out there that wants to control the land, they want to control the water, then they control the food, then they control the people. It's time to wake up. It's not a joke. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's happening right now to me and to you and to everybody around this country. The federal government is trying to get control over all of it.
[00:58:33.410] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And this monument can be signed by Biden at any point, and it doesn't have to go through It doesn't go through any other regulatory commission or Congress or the assembly or anything. He can just sign a piece of paper and it's done.
[00:59:00.800] - Sean Pond
That's correct. And in asking the proponents of this, they've been telling us that we need to talk to them. We need to have a seat at the table, if you would, and be able to have our input put in. But I asked them face to face, Do you write the plan? And they said no. And I asked them, Who does write the plan? And they said, The executive office. So all that happens is they have a proposal. They make up a map boundary drawn around a mineral belt with a crayon. They get that planned with a book of supporters. I've got a book here they've been working on for a couple of years that had a lot of supporters for a monument in Mesa and Montrose County, and the supporters are from Boulder and Denver County. But Biden doesn't care. He just looks at it, and it's part of his America, the Beautiful agenda. It's part of the United Nations 30 by 30 agenda, and he will fully and sign it, and it's done with the other however many are proposed at the time. It's a feather in his hat in the final days of his administration, and we are forever locked out.
[01:00:14.410] - Sean Pond
That's the importance, and that's where the energy, and I guess maybe my obsessiveness comes with this Paul for Dolores monument, is we're out of time. I didn't know about this a year ago or two years ago. I just found out about it 40 some days ago, on February 18th. In order for them to have this on Biden's desk by the third quarter, we're talking about August. I've got months to rally the troops, get people made aware, show their opposition by signing the petition, get us letters of opposition, help us do some fundraising so we can get these attorneys paid, that we could try to fight this thing and file litigation. We're almost out of time. It's not like we have a couple of years or To plan this opposition to losing our access to public land. It's now. The time is right now, today, and I feel like I can't move fast enough, man. I wish I had a red dot with a rear steer that I could plow forward and make people aware of the impending doom coming at us. But it's true. We are in the last day of the battle, and we've really got to draw attention to this and ask for help and support.
[01:01:31.220] - Big Rich Klein
So let's do this. Let's give us a call to order, a call to action. What can my listeners and other people out here, their friends, do to help Halt the Dolores Monument?
[01:01:49.720] - Sean Pond
So you can do a Google search of the Halt the Dolores Monument petition, and it'll bring you to a petition started by me, Sean Pond, titled Halt the Dolores Monument. Open it, take a read of it. If you agree with what's there, sign the petition. You don't need to donate to there. Any funds that are donated on the petition themselves, go to change. Org. They do not come to us. Those go there to promote the petition. So don't donate there if you don't want to, you don't need to. So that's going to share the petition or sign the petition. That adds it to the numbers. The account grows up. And please share that petition. Share it on your Facebook page, share it on your Instagram page, Share it on your Twitter page. Share with your friends, make sure they go. If everybody listens to this, signs a petition, and they tell 10 more people to sign the petition, we can grow this number quickly. I started a GoFundMe account for Halt the Dolores Monument, which is a registered nonprofit. At this point in time, we are registered as a nonprofit in the state of Colorado.
[01:02:53.340] - Sean Pond
We do not have our 501(C)(3) back yet. We should by the end of the year, but that Our attorneys are doing that for us. You can go on the GoFundMe, just Google the Halt the Dolores Monument GoFundMe page, and you can make a contribution there. A hundred % of those donations go right to the cause, to the attorneys, to the community outreach meetings, to the websites, to the billboards, to the newspaper articles. All of that money goes directly to those causes to Halt the Dolores Monument. If you'd prefer to, you can call me. My cell phone number is 970 to The email address for the Halt the Dolores Monument is info@haltthedeloresmonument. Com. The website will be www. Haltthedeloresmonument. Com. It is not active yet. It should be this week. We have a website designer trying to get them going really fast. Get people involved. This is probably going to be a little bit of a strange comment, But I'm used to a small guy in a little tiny town trying to raise awareness and fight this monument proposal. There are people out there that would probably listen to this, and I'm going to use a couple of them by name, but let's look at Matt with Matt's Off-Road Recovery in St.
[01:04:15.180] - Sean Pond
George, Utah. He has hundreds of thousands of followers. If he could share this information, he might very well be able to change the course of this. We might be able to get enough support to really make a difference in preserving our public lands. Rory Irish, a friend of mine with TrailMater in Moab, Utah. The same thing. There's people out there, Lauren Healey, some of these people that have a huge following, and I'm just one of the guys that follows them. But if they could somehow I know there's some weird political things there that maybe they can't say they support us, but if they could just share the information and ask people to come over and take a look at our stuff, look at our Facebook page, which I can't... You have to come to my Facebook page. It's Sean Ponds, no middle initial because I don't get hacked. But go to the website, call me, call my wife, get involved, share the word. The only chance that we've got with this half million acre monument is to spread the word, get enough support and opposition, gather enough funding that we can fight this thing on the same ground as they are.
[01:05:22.010] - Sean Pond
Then don't forget, there's another 23 monuments out there with groups just like ours that Ben Bur and Simone Griffin with the Blue Ribbon Coalition are fighting day and night, and I have so much respect for those two. I've met them. Simone came over and spoke at our meeting on Saturday. Getting the word out there, write letters. If you're in a different state, fight in a different monument, you've got to encourage people to write letters to your elected officials in opposition. In our case in Colorado, they need to send an email, send a letter, make a phone call to senators Bennett and senators Hickenlooper, and make sure that they know that you oppose the National Monument designation on the Dolores River. If you need that contact information, I posted on my Facebook page. It will be on the websites. We have upcoming community meetings all over the west of Colorado. Next one is in Yellow Jacket on April 13th. We share that information. My wife, Danielle Pond, go to her Facebook page. She livestreams all of these meetings for anybody to watch to educate themselves on. They're all different because we learn new things each time.
[01:06:29.850] - Sean Pond
Man, we need some people out there, some of these public influencers, to help us spread the word. If you love outdoor recreation of any sort, if you have ranching families, ranching friends, if you have people in the mining industry, rock crawling, jeeping, side by side riding, this is going to affect all of you. I'm going to beg you, share the petition, educate yourself, get educated, share, share, share, and reach out to us. We need all the help we we can get. We've only got a matter of months to be able to try to stop this thing.
[01:07:07.700] - Big Rich Klein
I think this is one of the most important podcasts, topics that we've had in the four years of doing this. This starts the beginning of our fifth year of podcasts. I just want to say that to everybody that's out there listening to this, you need to get as you As you see this podcast come up, tag it, tag your friends, tell your friends to listen to it and how important it is, because this is, like you said, this is just one of another 23 monuments that we know about that are being pushed into this agenda, and this stuff needs to stop. And the federal government needs to know that we don't approve of this action. So everybody out there that listens to this, please tag the people that you know, anybody that you believe is an influencer that can help share the message. Share this podcast because Sean has done a great job in explaining all this. Share Sean Ponds' Facebook page, Danielle Ponds' Facebook page. Share the website, Halta Dolores Monument that'll be active here just shortly. I stress, please, please, please, share and help us make a difference.
[01:08:45.980] - Sean Pond
Agreed. Thank you so much for having us on here today. It's an uphill battle, but people like you are appreciated. Thank you for helping us, Rich. Today was a pivotal point. We're going to reach more people than I could from my little place in the world. So thank you very much.
[01:09:00.380] - Big Rich Klein
Sean, thank you. And good luck in the fight. I'm going to share everything that I can and keep things coming to me directly so that I can... I don't always have... I don't always see it on Facebook so please tag me in anything that you post so that I can make sure that I can share it from there.
[01:09:21.140] - Sean Pond
Absolutely will. Absolutely will. Thank you again.
[01:09:23.530] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, thank you. And have a great rest of your day and keep up the fight.
[01:09:28.600] - Sean Pond
Will do. Thank you again, Rich. Good to talk to you. Until next time.
[01:09:30.850] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.