OCR Text |
Show Hi! ford Southern Utah center of DLL! activity during 1970 Management of nearly half of Utah's land area involved the Department of the Interior's In-terior's Bureau of Land Management Man-agement in a wide variety of activities during 1975. According to Paul L.Howard, L.How-ard, BLM state director for Utah, the Bureau was involved in-volved in such programs as recreation, mineral devel- opment, grazing, woodland products, and the preservation preserva-tion of environmental and cultural values of historical places. The bureau administers admin-isters nearly 25 million acres ac-res in Utah, or approximately approximate-ly 47 percent of the state's land area. A reorganization of BLM 's field offices was completed complet-ed in mid-1975, which consolidated con-solidated its eight Utah districts dis-tricts into five. Following public meetings across the state, a decision was made to locate district offices in Salt Lake City, Vernal, Richfield, Moab and Cedar City. Prior district offices in Fillmore, Price, Monticello and Kanab were redesignated as area offices and Hanksville became be-came the location of a new area office. New district boundaries coincide with county and multi -county planning district boundaries. Mr. Howard stated that the reorganization is helping the bureau to accomplish the increasing in-creasing and diverse work facing its field offices by imp roving on -the -ground management and establishing establish-ing a structure to respond better to national, state and. regional concerns. The proposed 3,000 megawatt mega-watt Kaiparowits power generating gen-erating project in southern Utah continued to occupy a lot of BLM's efforts. A draft environmental impact statement state-ment (FIS) on the proposal was prepared by BLM and released to the public by the Department of the Interior in July. Following public meetings in four western states and a period of time for interested people to make comments on the draft EIS, the Bureau is now preparing the final environmental en-vironmental impact statement. state-ment. The final EIS is expected ex-pected to be completed early next year and sent to the Secretary of the Interior who will make a decision on whether to allow the project. Bureau personnel are also involved in statement or pre -statement work on three other proposed coal -fired generating plants in Utah: Emery, near Castle Dale; Warner Valley, near St. George; and Intermountain Power Project, 10 miles north of Caineville. In mid-year, BLM started preparation of a draft EIS analyzing possible effects of the proposed alunite project in Beaver County. Alunite ore would be mined and processed pro-cessed at the project site in the south end of Wan Wah Valley, which is approximately approxi-mately 30 miles southwest of Milford. Alumina, the primary pri-mary raw material for aluminum, alu-minum, would be the major product. Work in preparation for Utah's first draft EIS on live -stoct grazing was started by BLM during the year. The pilot effort has been titled the Hot Desert EIS and includes in-cludes most of the national resource lands in Washington Washing-ton County. BLM will prepare pre-pare 20 grazing statements in Utah over the next 13 years due to a suit against the Bureau Bu-reau by the Natural Resourc-(Continued Resourc-(Continued on Page 5) national resource lands that burned 14,900 acres. This was a notable decrease from 33,675 acres burned in 1974. The Bureau was also Involved In-volved in Bicentennial projects pro-jects such as the placing of 100 concrete markers along the Ponly Express Trail and restoration of old relay stations. sta-tions. Mr. Howard pointed out that the Bureau was active in the management and development de-velopment of recreation sites across the state. River running is a growing sport and nearly 36,000 passenger days were spent this summer on portions of river administered admin-istered by BLM in Utah. A check for more than $3 million was sent to the Utah Treasurer in August as the state's share of funds received re-ceived from federal lands administered by BLM for the firs t half of the years in January, a check for approximately approx-imately $2.5 million was sent to the state so BLM in 1979k--augmented Utah's treasury by $5.5 million, Mr. Howard J noted. Ownership of 615.74 acres of BLM -administered land was transferred to the Utah Division of Wildlife With increasing public use of the BLM -administered national resource lands i there are more violations (either unintentionally or in- "' tentionally). So the Bureau this past year for the firt , time employed some prQ- ' fessionally-trained law enforcement en-forcement officers. One was Clarence Thompson, who has. , been assigned to Utah. He,'' will work closely with local V and state law officers in edu- '' eating the public and enforcing enforc-ing the laws. land. During the year, geo-thermal geo-thermal steam leases on 51,-427.15 51,-427.15 acres of BLM-admin-istered land in the state were offered for competitive bidding. bid-ding. High bids for the offering offer-ing totaled $2,705,618.73. The first geothermal drilling drill-ing operation of federal leas -es got underway in January in the Roosevelt Hot Springs area northeast of Milford. Continued test drilling in the area has indicated a potential poten-tial for production of geothermal geo-thermal resources in commercial com-mercial quantities. Base-line environmental studies by oil shale lease holders on national resource lands in eastern Utah continued con-tinued during the year. The Bureau was active in issuing various right-of-way grants. Included were rights-of-way. for power' transmission lines from Huntington to Sigurd and from Sigurd to Cedar City. There were 127 fires on In a wild horse round-up by BLM on Dugway Proving Grounds in October, 19 horses were captured under a cooperative agreement between be-tween BLM and the U.S. Army. Legal action was initiated by BLM early in the year to halt activities of trespassers on BLM -administered land in southern Utah. Some people peo-ple (including self -proclaimed polygamist Alex Joseph) had, without right, title, or permission, occupied national nation-al resource lands in the scenic sce-nic Cottonwood Canyon area northeast of Kanab. A new 12 -member citizen board was appointed in August Au-gust to advise the BLM state director concerning the management, use, protection and disposition of lands and resources on nearly half the area of the state. Two competitive oil and gas lease sales on known geologic structures involving involv-ing 13,582.13 acres were held during the year. High 'bids for the BLM leases totaled $259,119.43. Public meetings were held throughout the state to discuss dis-cuss possible revisions of oil and gas leasing categor-I categor-I ies on BLM -administered HERE'S MORE ABOUT Din es Defense council. Approximately Approx-imately 140,000 head of cattle cat-tle and half a million head of sheep graze part of the year on BLM -administered lands in the state. |