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Show Federal Agencies Meet Discusses New Signing PANGUITCH Proposed signing for roads located on federal lands was an integral part of discussions that took place at the most recent meeting of Garfield County commissioners with representatives repre-sentatives of local federal agency representatives. Participants included representatives representa-tives from the Forest Service, Park Service, Bureau of Land Management Manage-ment and State Parks who met with Garfaield County Commissioners Louis Liston and Clare Ramsay. A new road management plan was being introduced to the county officials and Joe Black of the Panguitch office of the Dixie National Forest continued the presentation by talking about the new signing being adopted. Black distributed copies of depictions of proposed signs he would be discussing, noting that they are being nationally accepted and are compatible with maps that were earlier discussed by Forester Bevan Killpack, St. George. Black said that signs on open roads will be carry a road number and an arrow and if the sign goes down, the road is closed, discouraging dis-couraging the removal of signs by unauthorized individuals and making mak-ing administration of the lands easier. Black said there are some areas where signs often stay up less than a week after being put in place. Under the new signing policy, roads will be classified by maintenance main-tenance level. A maintenance level 1 road is a road that is closed. A maintenance Level 2 road is a road that is open but is only passable by high clearance vehicles, four-wheel drives and so forth. Levels 3, 4 and 5 roads are roads that are passable to two-wheel drive vehicles and it goes from just a (See FEDERAL On Page 4-A) Federal Agencies From Front Page ' graded road up to a paved road, with a maintenance Level 5 road a paved road. $ Under the signing scheme, any .; sign with horizontal letters indicates that the road will accom- modate two-wheel drive vehicles, 'i Signs with vertical lettering are passable only to high clearance ve- ? hides. The nationally accepted standard f. process, Black said, will require some education of the public. The criteria and the explanation for how we are signing will be on the maps described earlier by Killpack. He said the general public is not likely to understand that tracks across the meadow are not an open road, so the federal agencies will have to take some special actions where closed roads take off from open roads. He said it will be necessary at the junctions to "obliterate" them or "rip them a little bit" to help inform the public. "But basically, Black said, "any road that is out there that has a sign on it with the letters indicates that it's open to the public." More flexibility in signing is provided for by signs that will indicate roads for specific uses only by saying "This road is open to-two-wheel drive, ATV's and four-whell four-whell drive vehicles." A trail sign might read, "This trail open for hiking." or horseback or biking "So you see," he said, "we can juggle those things around and we have a lot of flexibility." Specially blocked areas on the signs provide places for specific information, in-formation, such as seasonal closures, clo-sures, vehicle width limitations, foot travel only, closure to motorized mo-torized vehicles, etc. The sign, Black said, also provides a place to explain the reasons behind designated use, such as, prevent damage of vegetation, etc. He said that, although some sign exhibit red lines indicated restrictions, signs generally "emphasize "em-phasize what you can do, rather than what you can't do." " Provision is also made for other agencies to include their symbols and purposes including the 'Tread Lightly" symbol. There is, he said, "a lot of flexibility in trying to inform the public on what we're trying to do." Describing the project as a "major undertaking," Black indicated indi-cated it will take time to get the signs in place and to educate the public on their use. Commissoner Louise Liston asked if designated road use will be strictlly enforced from the outset. "I would suspect that when we first enter into this," responded Black, "we're going to have to be a little bit flexible 'til we've given the people time to understand what's going on out there." Liston said that she expected that there would be few deliberate misuses in the beginning and that most would occur from a lack of understanding. Black said,"But by going to a nationally accepted standard and -having uniformity in the map with what we're doing on the ground, hopefully we can get them educated just as quick as possible." Liston commended the uniform coordinated map policy of the agencies and the overall project as "tremendous" but "probably worthwhile worth-while in the end." Black said that Powell District Ranger Carl Giullette had said he expected the project to take about two years. Dave Henderson, representing the Richfield office of the Bureau of Land Management said his office had experienced "really, really poor luck being able to enforce" off-trail use to retrieve game" and other special uses. For example, Henderson Hender-son said, "... as soon as they head out to pick up that buffalo, a trip in and a trip back, you've got a track. And to the next person that comes along, that's a road." He said his office was unclear on how to handle the policy. Killpack said the point of the policy was to give rangers and area managers flexibility to make their own decisions. "They had a lot of places where they might not want people to go but it also allows the livestock men to take salt in, etc," aadding, "... When it comes to you, you look over it, you decided what you want on there." Using the Uintah areea map as an example, he showed that one game retrieval is (See FEDERAL On Page 5-A) Federal Agencies From Page 4-A allowed. Guillette said, "We are just developing our program right now, so we don't have all the answers. " "We allow dispersed camping, we're probably going to have to put that in a Level2 area or an open area and put in there 'open to dispersed camping' during this time. Cedar City Forester Ron Wilson said said it was a legitmate concern that requires discussion and could be a potential problem. Liston said she could see wisdom in leaving the discretion to the area manager or district ranger, citing as an example the need on Boulder Top to keep certain roads open for such use. The federal agencies group will meet again in May. |
