Name: Lisa Rutherford
Location: Ivins, Utah
Contribution: Public lands defender

How did you end up a conservationist in southwest Utah? I lived in Alaska for 30 years, 20 of those working in the oil and gas industry—I like to tell people that I'm a reformed oil company employee. I moved here in the early 2000s, and I became knowledgeable about public lands. In 2006, I began volunteering with a local organization that's now called Conserve Southwest Utah. That was when my feet hit the ground, and they've been there ever since.  

How did you get involved with the Sierra Club? The Utah Chapter put together a campaign against the Northern Corridor, a road that would cut through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. It would go through an area with a lot of desert tortoises. We did postcard-signing events to challenge Congressman Chris Stewart, who has tried to advance legislation to force the road through the reserve. 

Do you ever see the tortoises out and about? Oh yeah. They used to come through our yard. They're amazing creatures. A lot of people say that they're not indigenous. It's true that tortoises were brought to this area, but that doesn't mean that they weren't here already. You see them in the Native American rock art. 

What other issues do you work on? I also work to stop the 140-mile Lake Powell pipeline, which would go from Lake Powell to the Sand Hollow Reservoir in order to pipe water to Washington and Kane Counties in Utah. The cost could be from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion, and that's a low estimate. 

How are national politics around public lands affecting the work you do locally? It's definitely put us into a tailspin. Everything that we've been doing locally has now moved to the national level. We've had our governor go to the president, asking him to help expedite the Lake Powell pipeline. We have bills in Congress trying to get the Northern Corridor expedited. Really, Utah is ground zero. 

What's it like to work on these issues in such a politically conservative area? The politics here are very difficult. I write a lot of op-eds for the local papers. I also have a southern-Utah-issues Facebook page that I update regularly. I try to build bridges with people who are not like-minded. I get into some online discussions with people, and I try to couch my opinions such that we can come to some common understanding.

This article appeared in the May/June 2018 edition with the headline "Public Lands Defender."