THE CANYON COUNTRY WATCHDOG By Scott Groene, Dave Pacheco & Jennifer Lupton of the Southern Utah plant life of the Kaiparowits and oil and gas industry. Wilderness Alliance Escalante regions, not to enhance the profit margins of the Department of the Interior 1849 C Street SOMEBODY VOTED FOR HIM State Representative Brad Johnson Introduced a resolution to conduct a feasibility study of designating Sundance resort, owned by Robert Radford, as wilderness. Johnson apparently took the step to avenge Mr. Redford's efforts to protect wilderness in his home state of Utah. It appears Represenative Johnson fails to understand the concept of wilderness, or that Sundance is private land. All of which suggests Johnson's legislative acumen may be best suited for some of the other critical issues before the state house such as declaring the dutch oven the official state pot. UPDATE: THE LATEST EFFORT TO UNDERMINE WILDERNESS Utah Governor Mike Leavitt has offered to serve as an unbiased mediator to "resolve" the Utah wilderness "problem." There are several concerns with this overture. First: The Governor appears to be repeating the same mistakes made two years ago when the he allowed rural counties to write his wilderness proposal in a process that shut out most Utah citizens. On February, 14, the Governor and counties met to discuss wilderness in violation of Utah's open meeting law by refusing to allow representatives from SUWA and the Utah Wilderness Coalition to attend. Second: the Governor is hardly unbiased on the issue. He a), lobbied for the Jim bill during the last Congress, b). sued Secretary of the Interior Hansen's Bruce Babbitt to stop a survey to determine how much Utah BLM wilderness remains, and c). is trying to intervene in Federal Court to support rural counties that illegally bladed routes in proposed wilderness. Third: the Governor wants to use a piecemeal approach that considers a small amount of wildemes at a time. The result would be at best a couple of wilderness bills that protect only a small portion of the 5.7 million acres of remaining wilderness. Fourth: the Governor can't pass legislation without the help of the Utah congressional delegation, and Representative Jim Hansen refused to commit that he will introduce legislation to support any agreement that might come out of the Governor's process. In other words, the Governor would like to initiate another "happy talk" session, which might Finally, rural counties have told the present a photo op, but accomplishes nothing. Governor they are not interested in the process. Environmentalists, including SUWA, have offered instead to work with the Governor to trade State lands within the new Escalante National Monument for federal revenues or lands located elsewhere. This project would both protect the Monument and ensure the State of Utah gets fair compensation for lands that are now unlikely to ever generate revenue for Utah's school children. The Governor rejected our offer. WILDERNESS anti-wilderne-ss SOME CREATURES ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS (4 LEGS GOOD, 2 LEGS BAD) The New Federal Fee structure. To take a solo overnight hike in the Grand Canyon. .$12.00day. To drive into Arches National Park for one day $10.00day. To ride a bicycle in and out of Canyonlands on one day..$ 5.00day. For all the watergrass a cow and calf can consume (and rights to fill campsite with manure), on National Forest or BLM land ( $1.35 per month)... ...$ 0.05 day For all the water feed a sheep can consume, plus rights to defecate in streams, on National Forest or BLM land..$ 0.01 day CONOCO TARGETS AMERICA'S NEWEST NATIONAL MONUMENT Conoco Inc filed for permits to drill two oil wells within the new Grand Staircase-Escalant- e National Monument. The proposed locations are at the heart of the Monument on the Kaiparowits Plateau between Reese and Willow Canyons. Conoco does not intend to travel all the way from Texas to one of the most remote parts of the country just to drill one or two wells. If the company finds oil, the area will be subjected to construction of drill pads, haul roads, storage tanks, waste pits, pipelines and power lines. The existing network of dirt roads would be upgraded to all weather high standard roads to accommodate heavy tanker truck traffic in inclement weather. Some of the approximately 1.2 million acres wilderness in the area would be lost The Monument, created by Presidential proclamation last fall, is closed to all new oil and gas leasing. But Conoco erroneously claims that under its existing leases it holds a right to drill regardless of environmental damage or public concern. Conoco's statements indicate the corporation has grand plans: "These reserves could be as high as 4 billion barrels, and successful development of such giant fields would have a positive impact on our country's oil and gas needs". The threat of oil and gas development is the first test whether the Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for the Monument, is capable of protecting the area. This is the only National Monument within the United States managed by the BLM. The presidential proclamation which controls management of the new Monument declared the area was created solely for the protection of natural and historical wonders. This mandate offers stronger protection in some ways than that granted for National Parks, for recreational use is not listed among the purposes of the monument (the area is subject to existing grazing, hunting, and prior existing rights). Please call or write Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and ask that he respect President Clinton's proclamation and deny requests for drilling in the monument. The new Monument was created to protect the incredible archeological sites, fossils, wildlife and Washington, D.C 20240 202-208-73- 51 Please also write or call Conoco and let the company know the public disapproves of their effort to drill in the National Monument. Archie Dunham Chief Executive Officer Conoco Inc. 600 North Dairy Ashland Houston, Texas 770792 Corporation headquarters: (281) 0 Toll free customer number (800) 293-10- 00 624-644- UTAH BLM'S NEW GRAZING STANDARDS: MORE HOOEY. The Utah State BLM has issued new grazing standards, without any environmental study, that crown the cow king of our public lands (the agency first bestowed this title decades ago, but the latest action preserves the bovine monarchy). The standards lack measurable criteria, and water down existing national standards, which combined will ensure the ongoing grazing damage will continue. According to the decision signed by acting State Director Bill Lamb, the new guidelines, which were written by a livestockdevelopment dominated ad hoc committee, "will apply to all BLM decisions concerning all uses of of BLM lands in Utah (NOTWITHSTANDING LAW AND REGULATION TO THE CONTRARY)" (the capitilization is mine). Rarely has the Utah BLM been so forthright over its intentions to ignore federal law. Damn the constitution, anyway. The new guidelines were prepared as part of Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt's policy of capitulating to the livestock industry, and prove once again that the consensus groups can't make hard decisions, protect the status quo, and waste resources. KANE GULCH VISITOR CONTACT STATION In December, SUWA and eight other appellants (including the Utah Navajo Commission) were granted a Stay on BLM's decision to construct a permanent visitor facility at Kane Gulch on Cedar Mesa. Practically, this means BLM's internal court, the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Washington, D.C has agreed we've presented good reasons to hear the full appeal and will rule on the merits of the appeals, perhaps in about a year, rendering a final a decision whether the project will or will not proceed. SUWA has argued that although the goal of contacting the increasing number of visitors to Cedar Mesa is worthy, BLM has chosen to make contact in an indirect way...by constructing a building. We feel the contact can be accomplished more successfully and less expensively by hiring more rangers patrolling the canyons where the visitors are impacting ancient cultural artifacts, not from behind a counter where visitors tend to be car tourists who never enter the canyons. We believe BLM prefers facilities construction in this case primarily because several years ago Congress allocated $500,000 to build it before any required environmental analysis was undertaken. FILMING GONE NUTS In the last month Moab BLM has received a filming request every day.and it's just With new February! regulations requiring citizen appeals be heard only after the filming is complete, commercial advertisements, commercial videos, and motion pictures are likely to increase to incredible proportions this year. BLM has discretion to protect lands proposed for wilderness designation in HR1500, the citizens bill for 5.7 million acres, yet is not legally obligated to do so. Although BLM keeps some filming activities from occurring in these areas, and SUWA can raise concerns about where the filming will be done, the industry is self patrolled and in most cases those who are associated with the filming event are never involved in the permitting process. If you are interested in volunteering to independently monitor a filming project or if you work on these projects and wish to express a concern about a filming event adversely affecting the soils, wildlife, solitude, riparian or any other environmental aspect, please contact Dave Pacheco at SUWA 0 or Mary von Koch at BLM full-leng-th 259-544- 259-212- 8. MINERAL BOTTOM AIRSTRIP Moab BLM has written an Environmental Assessment to to four y grant commercial aviation companies to land rafting tourists at the Mineral dosed currently Bottom Airstrip on the Green River, six river miles north of the point the river enters Canyonlands National Park. Although the airstrip has been extensively used in the past, SUWA expressed concern about several aspects of the new project, most notably how BLM wishes to approve the project prior to Canyonlands National Park completing their River Management Plan. The River Plan will evaluate whether to change the yearly ceiling on total number of visitors allowed to float through Cataract Canyon, yet BLM wants to an unlimited number of flights to land at Mineral Bottom, pushing the number of approve river visitors even higher. BLM should wait on approving this project until after the Park evaluates carrying capacity of the rivers so a realistic number of river visitors can be set. Furthermore, although land agencies do not control airspace, many land managers wish they could regulate overflight noise disturbance over backcountry public lands, especially here in southern Utah where we're not yet facing tremendous overflight problems like in the Grand Canyon.. .yet. Fortunately, legislation has recently been introduced into the U.S. to allow land Congress agencies some regulation regitding overflights. BLM should hold off on its decision to approve use of the airstrip until the legislation is heard, potentially mm mm?. HBSB" ' rfv&'fr i maism rights-of-wa- it J1