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Show McKay warns against wilderness "lockup" Utah Congressman Gunn McKay recently said he opposes blanket wilderness withdrawels arid urged Forest Service officials in Utah to use caution as they prepare their final recommendations recommenda-tions for new wilderness area designations in the state. In a letter to Vern Hamre, head of the Forest Service Utah Regional Office in Utah, McKay said, "I oppose locking up numerous tracts of land with thousands of acres for wilderness use." He urged Hamre to proceed very cautiously so as not to threaten the potential development of Utah's vast natural resources. The public comment period on potential wilderness wilder-ness areas expired at the end of September under the current "RARE II" nationwide assessment of potential wilderness regions. re-gions. Hamre is expected to draw up his proposals and forward them to Forest Service officials in Washington sometime this month. McKay said Utah, with 67 percent of its land area in federal ownership, is in a position to be "severly compromised" by a wide- spread locking up of the public lands. The Utah Democrat said the matter of wilderness setasides does not hinge on the question of protection protec-tion of the land. "I am anxious that all watershed and other valuable valu-able resource areas be protected, but the Forest Service has ample administrative admin-istrative authority to protect pro-tect these area from degradation without statutorily stat-utorily restricting public lands to single use." "I trust the administrative administra-tive ability of the Forest Service to protect our natural resources from exploitation while at the same time allowing timber, tim-ber, mining, grazing and other multiple-use activities activi-ties to continue," he concluded. |