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Show Castle Valley Land Exchange Hearinq Here on May 1 5th Public comment is being be-ing solicited by the Bureau Bu-reau of Land Management concerning a proposal by the State of Utah that the state should be allowed to acquire land presently owned by the federal government in Castle Valley east of Moab. Robert D. Nielson, BLM state director for Utah, said public meetings meet-ings will be held May 15 at 8 p.m. in the Helen M. Knight elementary school in Moab and May 17 at 8 p.m. in the State Office Building auditorium auditori-um behind the State Capitol Cap-itol in Salt Lake City. The state will be represented repre-sented at both meetings to explain their plans for managing the Castle Valley area if ownership of the land is transferred to them. As required by the National Na-tional Environmental Policy Act, BLM has been conducting an environmental environ-mental analysis to assess possible impacts if ownership is transferred from the federal government govern-ment to the state. Utah has applied with BLM to select 8,192 acres in Castle Valley in exchange for 10,521 acres of state - owned land. Of the state's offered of-fered lands, 8,121 acres are now within Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks, Natural Bridges National Monument Monu-ment and the Green River Missile Base. The remaining re-maining 2,400 acres of state land are in four scattered state sections (three in the area of Westwater Canyon near Cisco, Grand County, and one in the area of BLM's Slick Rock Bike Trail, 3 miles east of Moab). The state's exchange applications are based on provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, National Na-tional Park System Exchange Ex-change Act of 1968 and the Congressional bill of November, 1971, thaten-larged thaten-larged Canyonlands National Na-tional Park. Congress has provided that the state may obtain federal land of comparable value when state-owned land is acquired for federal purposes. pur-poses. Utah therefore selected se-lected Castle Valley land in exchange for 5,634 acres of former state land in Canyonlands National Na-tional Park, 647 acres in Capitol Reef National Park, 360 acres in Natural Na-tural Bridges National Monument and 1,480 |