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Show THE ZEPHYRDECEMBER 1995 PAGE 18 From San Juan County ... Around By Ken Sleight CHAINING ONCE AGAIN! The moratorium on chaining by the Bureau of Land Management is over. Once again huge machines pulling anchor chains between them have mowed down hundreds of acres of pinyon and juniper trees. The recent chaining - termed the Anadarko Mitigation Project - took me completely by surprise as it did much of the public. 1 learned of the chaining on my return from Salt Lake on Friday, October 27 when I stopped in Wellington for coffee and gas. ricking up an October 26 issue of Price's article Sun Advocate 1 was stunned! There blaring out at me was a front-pag- e headlined: "BLM, ANADARKO COMPLETE CHAINING PROJECT NEAR pipe lines, and access roads be better attended to? Of course, the EA brings up a number of concerns. 1 found that quick shortcuts were made. For instance, so quickly did the Price Resource Area desire to get the call to Mr. Larry project on its way, that David Mills, on August 3, made a phone on the England of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, regarding potential impacts the project candidate plant species, hedysarum occidentale var. canone. Mills described no be would significant impact on to him by phone, and the two decided that there visit or the species. Apparently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made no on-siwritten statement. Mills asked England if he could document the phone conversation with him in a report. He said that England replied "that he would have no problem with that and would back up the statement if questioned." There needs to be a complete answer to the procedures undertaken by the BLM in this instance. te FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST I a Freedom of Having received no response from BLM by October 30, made Information request on that day to the BLM. There were many things lacking in the EA that I wanted answered. The items requested concerned the schedule of public involvement, a copy of the Price River Resource Area Management Framework Plan, State BLM Director, and copy of the chaining "moratorium" directive from the former a copy of the grazing allotment plan. I wanted a list of all agencies and individuals consulted or contacted regarding the individuals that made a preparation of the EA and a list of those agencies and I asked for the BLM response or comment. Regarding the Anadarko operations EA066-94-02-6 which authorized Anadarko explorations and operations in that general area. I wanted copies of any mitigation reports pertaining to the surface disturbance (drill pads, pipelines, access roads, etc.) associated with Anadarko activities. This should include an assessment of the damages which occurred due to Anadarko operations. WELLINGTON" In that article, reporter Layne Miller wrote that David Mills, the leader of the BLM team, "would rather not have the Sun Advocate release a story about the chaining until the project is completed..." Of course the question quickly arose, why did Mills not want the public to know about the chaining operations until it was over? What was there to hide or conceal? I try to keep up on most environmental matters that occur in the Moab BLM District. I couldn't understand how I could have missed knowing about the chaining project. I thought myself derelict until quizzed others about the project. They had 1 not known of the chaining either. The project was cleverly conceived and executed without fully informing the public. Of course this means that proper procedures were not followed. I sense that the Price BLM office deliberately misled the public regarding the ramifications of this project. Knowing that the term "chaining" would again inflame the public as it did at the Amasa Back chaining a few years ago, great caution was taken by BLM not to explain these actions as "chaining." No mention of chaining was made in the one news release to the public. In the past, this has partly been But it spoke of "habitat improvement." a traditional government practice by the accomplished through "chaining" operations, BLM to tear out trees to increase the grass for the grazing of cows. I doubt many of the public know the connection. Arriving at Moab, I stopped at the BLM office to get more information. I met with Brad Palmer, the area manager of the Grand Resource Area, who arrived at the district office the same time I did. I asked him if he knew about the chaining operations showing him the newspaper article. He said he knew nothing about it as it was out of his area. As Palmer was in charge of the torrid Amasa Back chaining project, I had assumed that he would have been a great resource person, being in the same district, for the Price Resource Area to contact. But apparently the Price office didn't. As the regional manager and others were in the field, I received ro further information there. I hurried home and phoned the BLM office in Price. Upon my urgent request, the EA was faxed to me by BLM in the afternoon of that same day. And then I phoned the BLM state office where I was told there was never a state moratorium after all. I asked that a copy of the letter announcing the cessation of chaining be sent to me. To date, no copy has arrived. On inspecting the EA, I found a number of possible alternatives that had not been considered. Apparently there had been no public scoping meetings, no other public meetings or hearings, and little opportunity for public participation. The public had little opportunity to help determine the issues and to ponder possible solutions. A short press release had been issued to the Sun Advocate (Aug 17, 1995 issue) In that release nothing was said of "chaining." Nothing was said of ripping Price. in out trees. Instead, the action was termed a "wildlife habitat enhancement project." Needless to say, the readers of that limited-are- a newspaper were not arousal. The short y comment on August 16. And as far as I started period public no document reflected released of the public after the public was that concerns know, response period had closed. I wonder if the draft EA was adopted without further consideration. Seemingly, no final EA was even issued. No mailings were apparently made to those members of the public who were personally involved in the Amasa Back chaining. The Moab district had the names of those involved - both of the involved environmental groups and individuals. As far as I know none were contacted. Apparently, Anadarko itself had destroyed or damaged the natural habitat as a result of its own operations. But BLM, it seems, rather than require Anadarko to dean up its own mess, arranged that Anadarko would "mitigate" other nearby habitat through damaging chaining operations. Immediately I wondered why Anadarko was not required to mitigate or restore its own affected area. Could not certain drill pads. 30-da- GSZ The anchor chain used at Amasas Back... wanted a copy of the Anadarko application to do the chaining work and a copy of all agreements, directives, and instructions entered into with Anadarko which should have been in the EA. I wanted a copy of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) application and their plan concerning the chaining operations. I wanted a copy of the Archeological Clearance report. This should include a log of how the study was accomplished, who accomplished the work, the dates the work was done, and the results of the investigations. This should also include whether a survey was made for prehistoric roads across the project area, and if so, its results. And since Native American communities should have been notified, I wanted to know the extent of their involvements in the planning steps. For instance in San Juan County, the Utah Navajos are particularly sensitive to the diminishing supply of firewood on which they depend. They realize that past chaining operations and the subsequent burning of firewood have caused a shortage of available firewood. And finally I wanted copies of any monitoring instructions given the chaining crew regarding the chaining operations prior to the chaining operations. I remembered vividly the Amasa Back chaining where, upon arriving at the chaining site, we found no BLM personnel monitoring the chaining activity. Seemingly, the operators could mow down what they chose. And a host of other measures had to be considered. Were they? It was to sensitive This would have included the flagging of areas. flag important any mining claim markers, section comers, cultural objects, archeological sites, wildlife covers, protected islands of trees, and other sensitive areas. A previous chaining operation had been accomplished in that general area in 1989, and so I asked for a copy of the Soldier Creek project EA. I wanted a statement of total costs attributable to the project (chaining, wd, contracts, time spent, etc.) and who was responsible for the costs. This would have included a statement of the costbenefit ratio and how it was arrived at. All of these items should have been treated in the EA but on the whole they weren't. I on-the-s- APPARENT REFUSAL OF BLM TO FORWARD THE DOCUMENTS To this date, November 19, I have received nothing, not even a phone call regarding my Freedom of Information request. By law, BLM should have responded within 10 working days which would have placed the due date at November 13 Admittedly 1 write this article without all of the facts. The BLM could have helped |