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Show The Salt Lake Tribune eak TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER5, 1995 Bl OUTDOORS & RECREATION OUTDOORS_ TOM WHARTON Utah Open Spaces Must Be Preserved Now “We can't go into the foothills because of wildlife habitat and we can’t go [to the west] because offarmlands. Well, the Great Salt Lake desert is kind ofdifficult to do too much with.” Al Mansell, realtor and State Senator Perhaps without realizing what he was saying at a recent meeting of the Utah Legislature’s Land Conservation Task Force, the Sandy Republican best summarized what is happening to Utah’s Deserve Praise: Wildlife enthusiasts should praise Department of Natural Resources’ executive director Ted Stewart and Department of Agriculture commissioner Cary Peterson for their visionary efforts to preserve Utah’s open spaces. Fighting to save open spaces can't be easy for Stewart and Peterson, two of Utah's most conservative politicians. But they know that farming, ranching, hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing contribute millions of dollars to the state’s economy. Shouldn't legislators and county governments fight as hard to preserve these importantstate industries as they do to bring in more business? Isn’t it time for Utah to come up with a statewide master pian designed to preserve farms, ranches and wildlife habitat? If land isn’t set aside now for farms and wildlife, it will soon be gone. : 5 ii Brett Prettyman/The Salt Lake Tribune ATV riders create a minor dust storm as they rumble across the Great Salt Lake desert and into Wendover during Muscular Dystrophy benefit ride. PCKCSS ThE PESET a open spaces. Becauseofthe attitudes of developers and politicians like Mansell, the Salt Lake Valley will soon fill with homes and strip malls. Growthwill win out over wildlife habitat, parks, family farms and trail corridors. With the exception of mountain canyons, which by themselves can’t support wildlife, most of the open space along the Wasatch Front is going or already gone. The result is dwindling deer and elk populations and conflict between wildlife and urban residents. By not leaving winter range for deer and elk on the benches, Salt Lake County residents decided 20 years ago they weren't interested in maintaining the valley's wildlife populations. By making zoning decisions without long-term land-use master plans, the cities eliminated future options. In manycases,it is now too late to developtrails and parks. Wildlife habitat preservation is out of the question. The land is gone. ATV Adventure Helps Fight Muscular Dystrophy By Brett Prettyman THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE SKULL VALLEY — Attimes, the dust in the air wasso thick it seemed you could write your namein it. Bright Augustsunshinereflected cff the Bonneville Salt Flats, sunburning faces through helmets, goggles and bandanas. So what are the chances the 189 participants in the 11th Annual Ride ForLife all-terrain vehicle round trip from Lakepoint to Wendoverwill be coming back go to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. About $13,500 was raised this year, said David next year? Ricketts, with the Utah chapter of MDA. The money Aboutas likely that the sameriders lost more money than they won at the Nevada casinos duringtheir overnight stay. “Y'll be back,”said first-timer Wayne Estesof Salt Lake while enjoying lunch through a dusty face. ‘A friend told me about the ride and it motivated me knowing that it was for a great cause.” Theride is sponsored by the Utah ATVAssociation, the Bureau of Land Management Salt LakeDistrict and TriCity Polaris. Proceeds from the annualevent helps with diagnosis, social workers, nurses, summer camps, orthopedic equipmentlike wheelchairs, support groups and research Or, as Deedee Pierce told the riders at a Sunday breakfast before the 110-mile trip back, ‘You are prolongingthelives of children through the money you provide for research.” Pierce’s daughter, Miranda, has one of the 40 different neuromuscular diseases for which MDA is & See ATV RIDE,Page B-4 BAREFOOT WATER SKIERS Easementsa Key: A combination of tax breaks and conservation easements should be used to encourage owners of farmland Rick Egan/The it Lake Tribune T.J. Neff gets help from his uncle Brandon Dorney and a tow rope on AntelopeIsland causeway. and ranches to preserve open spaces without taking hugefinancial losses, Easementswill be the key. They work by paying large-property owners money to keep their land ISLAND BICYCLING open and free of development. The landowner keeps title but agrees not to subdivide or develop land for a certain amount of time, thus preserving wildlife habitat. The Division of Wildlife Resources needs to make identifying the remaining winter range and stream corridors an immediate goal. Then a combination of land trades, local zoning decisions, conservation easements and land purchases can be used to preserve those key open spaces. Without such a plan, haphazard development will slowly choke off wildlife as it has done along the Wasateh Front. Utah is a generation behind in making these decisions. Streams are being dewatered, wetlands are being destroyed and big game ranges are forever gone. As a result, there will be a siow but inevitable loss of our wildlife habitat, our outdoor heritage and our quality oflife. That is what has happened on the Wasatch Front and in Surnmit and Washington counties. If our political leaders mske poor decisions now, it is also whatwill inevitably happen to the rest of Utah. Craig Hensell/The Sait Lake Tribune Barefoot waterskier Lyndy Goodsell leaps high. Sky View High Student Ranks Among Best in United States By Craig Hansell THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE NEWTON — Lyndy Goodsell, 2 quiet Sky View High freshman with a spectacular smile, can go skiless with the best of them. Her shyness melts away as soon asshe yells ‘‘Hit it!” and her father throttles up the 200 horse-power Mercury out- board which speeds the boat and transforms Lyndy from underthe water to a barefoot water skier. Cache Valley does not come always to mind when watersports centers are discussed. But here, high in Utah’s mountains, Goodsell is developing world-class skills with coach ing from her barefooting pioneer father, Lynn. Goodsell, 14, is just as excited about being selected to play soccer at Sky View as she is about her on-water accomplish& See BAREFOOT,Page B-3 Antelope Island Managers Promoting Mountain Bikes By TJ, Quinn THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK — Park officials and recreation enthusiasts have had a tough time over the past couple of years figuring out what to do with their island gem. Anybody with at least two wheels and a motor has wantedto get their all-terrain vehicie of choice out to the island's hills and paths. On the other hand, some environmentalists want to keep it as remoteasit was in 1846. Somewhere between those extremes, park and Davis Countyofficials sought te give the 28,000-acreisland a recreational niche to make the mostofits natural beauty without trampiing all overit. They picked mountaiabiking. After the success of last Easter’s “Buffalo Rikers” race, county officials are ready to turn the island into a rsountain biking haven for northern Utah, hopefully drawing visitors from all over the United States Next April, the island again will host two days of Buffalo Bikers activities, only this time it will be part of a national championship circuit that the National OffRoad Bicycle Association (NORBA)is creating. “The thing is we'd like people to come out here. We wouldn't have jobs if we didn’t serve the public,” said Tim Smith, the island’s manager. “We like the mountain bikes quite a bit because we haven't had any problems with them going off the trails.” Hikers and horseback riders occasionally tramp off to parts of the park where rangers don’t want to see them, damaging terrain and sometimes upsetting the buffalo and anteiope thatlive there. Bikers can’t get too far in the high grass and brush that growsnextto thetrails. They can, however, enjoy the vistas on the west side of the island wherethereis only hill and lake and sky. ‘The valley andall its noise completely diseppear behind the island’s peaks, and there is no concrete, no neon, no anything oncecyclists headto the island's restricted 26,000 acres. Davis County community development officials plan to work up a marketing blitz and race promoters are trying to get corporate sponsors to pay for newtrails the county won't be able to build for years without financial help. Bob Walker, a veteran cyclist and NORBAreferee who helped organize the event, said the key was NORBA's decision to create the new championshipseries. Until now, racers had the option of riding in two divisions which werethe equivalent of choosing to com: pete at a high schoo!level or in the major leagues. The new circuit establishes the equivalent of a college level ® See BICYCLING,Page B-4 |
