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Show BOOK CLIFFS continued "Oscar doesn’t play with the same rules as everybody else," said Dale Steffes, a Houston oil consultant in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article. "Just about everything is business with him.” Wyatt now has ranching operations in Colorado and Utah. The Book Cliffs’ Sweetwater Ranch is run by a professional manager and owned jointly by Wyatt and the Alameda Corporation, in which Wyatt holds an interests. From the time Wyatt bought the ranch, he opposed the conservation initiative. According to Phillip Lear, attorney for the Alameda Corporation, Wyat wants to get along. "We tried for a year to work cooperatively before we filed the lawsuit. We had some eight or nine meetings with the BLM, with DWR, and with the conservation groups trying to work this out.” Lear says that in the meetings "we wanted to see if they would cut back on their elk herd. They have a target of putting 7,500 elk on that property where there were only about 1,500 before.” “There isn't enough accommodate the cattle, forage which there to are legally up “our forage” and causing harm to the Sweetwater's cattle. "We want to do a scientific count [of elk] out there but we anticipate that it now could be a high as 4,000,” Lear asserts. Donaldson of Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources notes that only 900 of 450,000 acres in the conservation initiative have been treated. He says that "the elk right now, with or without the initiative, have increased at what we'd call a normal rate for the western United States." Though no accurate population estimate has been conducted, Wildlife Resources’ best estimate of relative abundance based on helicopter counts is about 1,700 to 2,000. The Elk Foundation’s. Bill Christensen some meetings prior to the court case, Alameda did -not meet ‘with the Elk Foundation ‘till after the lawsuit was filed. Christensen says, that in these meetings mise here.’ " The Alameda lawsuit claims that through the conservation initiative, the coalition members violated the Taylor Grazing Act, the law governing grazing on federal lands. The Act states as one of its purposes "to stop injury to the public grazing lands by pre- The target maximum herd size of 7,500 elk had been established before Wyatt bought his ranch through a public process that neither the conservation initiative participants nor even the governor could cir- ge o Lire] Book Cliffs permits held by the conservation groups were put into what was called temporary non-use status. Battle says that "the regulations then specifically authorized tempo- rary non-use for conservation purposes." To shore up its right to hold permits, the Nature Conservancy grazes cattle on some of its other ranches and this year will run cattle on the Book Cliffs property. Battle says that Elk herds are growing unlike the Conservancy, the Elk Foundation has not conducted grazing before but they in the Book Cliffs. cumvent. Christensen does concede, though, that nobody really knows how many elk or might consider it. "They'll use them or they could decide to sell the permits to somebody how many cattle the Book Cliffs can sup- port. Cullen Battle, attorney representing the Elk Foundation and the Nature Conservancy, points out that “nobody puts elk out on the range. They occur naturally and will procreate unless over-hunted or unless the range is overgrazed by livestock." The main gist of the lawsuit, in addition to challenging restricted access to grazing lands, is that conservation groups have no right to hold grazing permits if they're not in the livestock business. Alameda is challeng- « cst nee Pe ee a3 te thy) 2 10 ¢ JUNE 1997 PAGE BREAKFAST Monday-Friday ....... 7:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Saturday-Sunday ...... 7:00 a.m. — 3:00 p.m. LUNCH Monday-Saturday ..... 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. DINNER Monday-Thursday .... .5:00 p.m. = 9:00 p.m. Friday-Saturday ........5:00 p.m. - 10 p.m. A private room is available for special functions. The Park Cafe can also cater private parties at your home or office. Call now for reservations. FAX delivery available. (801) 487-1670 604 East 1300 South ¢ Salt Lake City (just south of Liberty Park) Open seven days a week e Burt DeLambert says initiative, the conservation "they did that the efforts can continue to restore a healthy ecosystem in the Book Cliffs. "Our position is that even if conservation use is Te invalid, we'll just switch back to temporary CRRA Pum rae a a HAIR WRAPS BY APPT. WRAP ONLY $1” PER INCH non-use and do what we were doing before." In the meantime a bigger chal- lenge may be developing a long term manoe W 9447 S. 700 EAST a (WEST SIDE OF SANDY MALL) Mon.-Fri..10-7 ea a the Wyoming group. of Wyatt or Wyoming cases, Battle believes BNI Mae To date, something pretty honestly. They bought those AUMs, retired the cattle off of them and turned them over to game.” Regardless of the outcome of the Pence mre CT eal ACR a CST aa gel Cos SR TTT ae Or SRO in Salt Lake. Washington, D.C. Not every rancher agrees with Wyatt or Children /Sterling Ball Chain American regional cuisine aS Menu changes seasonally That decision is currently on appeal. If it is upheld, environmental groups will have a harder time restoring ecosystems on over- Judge Dee Benson has not ruled. Wyatt has vowed to a TV news reporter that if he loses his case he'll fight all the way to the Supreme Court. His attorney Lear says that if the suit is dismissed, they have a number of options, including filing suit in state court and others with the U.S. Court of Claims in ORLem gems Cte lags Tires Assam ints ale © New shipment of birthstone ea use them, like Burt we sure as hell are not going to let Oscar Wyatt come in and snatch them away from us. And that’s what this is all about.” Wyatt is not alone in battling the new regulations. A group of ranching organizations has challenged the legality of conservation status and won its case in federal court in Wyoming, thereby overturning the regulations that allowed groups or individuals to hold grazing permits in conservation status. U.S. District Court SERIA i} else who could DeLambert. But grazed lands. Lawyers for both sides of the Book Cliffs case presented arguments in early April in 4 i I age aa) time to let it recover or for any number of reasons." Before the new regulations came out, the says that although he is aware that there were Alameda presented 20 items of concern. For 19 of the 20, the parties found common ground. Item 20 was the number of elk. oe ee game, conservation use is nothing new," says Battle. "Ever since there |. is been grazing on the public lands, there have been procedures whereby the BLM or the permittee withdrawal the land from grazing for a period of due to the conservation initiative were eating there, and to take the increase of nearly 6,000 elk,” Lear argues. “But they said, “We've got a goal and there's not a compro- v ing new Department of Interior regulations issued in 1995 that allow for permits to be placed in conservation status for up to 10 years. "Though it is a new terminology and introduces some new players into the _ venting overgrazing and soil deterioration." Yet Lear concedes it isn’t a domestic livestock grazing act. “It is not a wildlife grazing statute.” In federal court in April, Alameda’s attorneys claimed that the swelling herd of elk agement plan for the area. Bringing together interest groups accustomed to waging war with each other may make it hard to build a consensus. "Even though it’s a messier, more complicated way to go, | think it’s really the wave of the future," Montague says. "You have to involve the affected parties. The best, most secure conservation solutions are those where the broadest number of interests agree.” 4 |