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Show A8 Castle Valley Review, March 2009 “ We have language approved by the environmental communities in the county and the state. So we will no longer negotiate over water language and things like that. It will be cut and past. We will be talking strictly about numbers and acreages. Emery County, or whoever goes next will already have language, it would be the same language as Washington County. You would just transfer that language over, but then you have different values. You don’t worry about language now, you already know it’s been approved by the parties at the table and secondly, you know it’s going to pass. - Randy Johnson then, but after the election nothing more was done and the bill died. “We had to start all over again and that was when Senator Bob Bennett’s office got heavily involved,” Johnson said. Still facing an almost insurmountable hurdle when it came to getting local environmental groups involved, Senator Bennett was successful in working with environmental groups at the national level and that was when the ball really started rolling. “I’ve been trying to get wilderness done in the state for 15 years and my biggest opponent has been national wilderness groups,” Johnson said with a smile. “Figure that one out. There’s so much irony there.” With environmental groups finally at the table and legislation hammered out, the model is now in place for other counties to follow in dealing with their own “ the same pattern to be used in other counties,” Johnson said. “As an advisor to Emery County I would advise them to do whatever discussions they want to evaluate where they are on various areas and roads and acreages and then be prepared to follow the same pattern established with Senator Bennett and allow it to go on a national level where they negotiate over those final numbers. Right now we won’t negotiate over language. We have language approved by the environmental communities in the county and the state. So we will no longer negotiate over water language and things like that. It will be cut and past. We will be talking strictly about numbers and acreages. Emery County, or whoever goes next will already have language, it would be the same language as Washington County. You would just transfer that language over, but then you sit down and talk about ways for all parties to find some common ground. “There’s been a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding over the years,” Groene said. “When people can reach an agreement about public lands and wilderness we will all be better off.” In a telephone interview Groene said he understands that many people in the county have a lot of suspicion, even animosity towards SUWA. He said he knows it is going to take time to develop a dialogue. “There’s contention going back 25 years about how these lands should be managed. There are a lot of reasonable people out there who are willing to listen. That’s the impetus for us. There’s room to learn from the Washington County bill,” Groene said. And in a statement that re- There’s contention going back 25 years about how these lands should be managed. There are a lot of reasonable people out there who are willing to listen. That’s the impetus for us. There’s room to learn from the Washington County bill. wilderness issues. “All of the counties have been watching Washington County. They were all part of the decision where Washington County asked to go first. They all knew that if Washington County was successful it would open the doors for other counties to do the same thing,” Johnson said. Whether Emery County will be the next county in the state to try and calm the public lands storm remains to be seen, but the fact that environmental groups are now willing to talk is a drastic change from past efforts and the success of Washington County changes everything. “The success of Washington County opens the door now for - Scott Groene Southeastern Utah Wilderness Alliance have different values. You don’t worry about language now, you already know it’s been approved by the parties at the table and secondly, you know it’s going to pass,” he said. During the Feb. 3 meeting of the Emery County Public Lands Council, Scott Groene, executive director of the Southeastern Utah Wilderness Alliance, came to the table to give a wilderness presentation and the fact that he came to talk with other stakeholders at the council was an historic moment in many people’s eyes and whispers that the success of Washington County has created a template for further discussions in the state, including in Emery County. Part of that template is a willingness to ” flects how the climate for discussion about public lands issues may be changing, Groene said, “There’s no way to reach an agreement unless we all agree that there is room for give and take.” The Public Lands Council has begun informational meetings prior to its monthly public lands meeting to educate the public on issues at stake and what management practices are already in place on the San Rafael Swell. Where the county goes from here, whether it follows Washington County’s example or not, depends on how it decides to answer the same questions that have always revolved around the San Rafael Swell’s future. “It’s still the same question,” ” Johnson said. “Do nothing and see what happens or try to do something on the local level. It’s the same question we’ve always asked and it is what the public lands council will have to answer.” As always, the risk of doing nothing could very well result in something being done at the federal level, as was the case with the Grand Staircase-Escalante. “You have people in the White House who are the same people that were there in the Clinton Administration. They know where the San Rafael Swell is and they know its value to the environmental community. The question is under this administration will no one pay attention to the San Rafael Swell?” Johnson said. Hovering over all of the discussion about the San Rafael Swell is the Red Rock Wilderness Bill, which has been submitted to every session of Congress since 1989, when Representative Wayne Owens first introduced it. When first introduced the bill encompassed 5.7 million acres of public land and has since swelled to 9.4 million acres. If it were to ever be signed into law it would create wilderness of 51 percent of Emery County. Representatives of SUWA have spent years gathering support for the act and have been successful in gaining a long list of supporters. “It’s an easy sell,” said Ray Petersen, administrator of the Emery County Public Lands office. “They travel the country and present slide shows that say this is your public land and you need to protect it.” What Petersen and many others find ironic about the red rock legislation is that Highway 6 and Interstate 70 slice through areas that the legislation would call wilderness. “There are people all over the country who support it and they don’t have a clue about Highway 6 surrounded by wilderness and there’s all these other uses going on. As far as they know this is pristine wilderness,” Petersen said. As public lands administrator Petersen is not a voting member of the council. It will be up to the What is the Definition of Wilderness, Anyway? So what exactly is wilderness? One person’s definition might be radically different from someone else’s, which is one of the reasons why public lands issues and wilderness designations have always been such a heated topic for debate. The definition, according to the Wilderness Act of 1964, is: “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.” The definition can leave areas for debate and there are plenty of people who are willing to do so. “’With the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.’ That can be very subjective,” said Ray Petersen, administrator of the Emery County Public Lands office. “For instance, my wife and I hike a lot. We get out in some of these areas and because of what I’ve done for so many years and continue to do, I can spot where a bulldozer has put down a blade and left a berm. That’s just the way my mind works from years with the road department. My wife can walk across that country and never see it and as far as she is concerned there’s never been anyone else there. It’s wild and pristine. There’s your scope. Substantially unnoticeable to whom?” The truth of the matter is that because of the vagueness of the Wilderness Act, wilderness is whatever Congress says that it is. Only Congress can designate wilderness and so in the end it boils down to Congressional interpretation. The debate, no doubt, will continue. |