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Show BLM Evaluates Comments The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing and evaluating more than 3,000 comments received from the public nationwide concerning the bureau's proposed wilderness study areas in Utah. According to Kent Biddulph, wilderness coordinator for BLM in Utah, these comments are being evaluated by BLM district personnel. Following evaluation, the five district managers in Utah will make their recommendations to BLM Utah State Director Gary J. Wicks, who will announce his decisions publicly in November. Biddulph said the timetable for completing this phase of the wilderness review was recently extended from September 30, 1980, to mid-November to ensure the program. BLM started the wilderness review in adequate funds from fiscal year 1981 appropriations for printing and distributing decision documents to the public. Fiscal year 1981 begins October 1. Wicks said he plans to announce on November 14 his decisions on which areas will become wilderness study areas and which will be dropped from further wilderness consideration. On April 1, Wicks announced his proposals and started a 90-day public comment period. He proposed to the public that out of the total areas in Utah intensively inventoried by BLM, approximately 1,700,000 acres had wilderness characteristics and should be identified for further wilderness study, and that 3,200,000 acres should be dropped from December, 1978, on approximately 22 million acres in Utah. Since then, a total of 2,400,000 acres in Utah have been proposed for wilderness study (including the 1.7 million acres announced in April) are designated as WSAs through special inventories. After areas are formally identified as wilderness areas the recommendations will be forwarded o the Secretary of the Interior and then to the President. The President must submit his recommendations to Congress by October 21, im Only Congress can designate a wilderness area. Wicks said in Utah BLM plans to complete the wilderness study phase as quickly as possible so land users can make future plans at the earliest possible date. During the study phase, the bureau will continue to seek public participation in determining whether or not an area's most appropriate use is wilderness or whether other resource values should take precedence. All adopted amendments were published as proposed rulemaking in the "Federal Register" on July 30, 1979, with a 60-uay public comment period which ended September 28, 1979. Appropriate comments and suggestions were incorporated into the final regulations which The town has a motel, but it houses construction workers and isn't yet available to the public. A restaurant is scheduled to open next fall. Turning a transient camp into a permanent town presents a wide range of planning pro'ms, the students observed. "It's a very difficult transition because they're starting from nothing," says the professor. "There are collossal and fascinating problems in a town like this. It's very exciting." One of the community's biggest problems is getting people who are used to urban services to come and stay. Many workers commute to work from towns in southern Utah and western Colorado for four days rather than live in Ticaboo. "Extraordinary measures are being made by developers and miners to ensure that Ticaboo doesn't become another boom town situation where people are brought in with no incentive to stay," says Burns. "People here are working hard to create an above average community in a difficult situation. They've already formed various groups and have even established a volunteer fire department." Responsibility for urban services in the community poses another problem. The State Planning Corodinator's Office has representatives working with the developer and miners to determine priorities and who should pay for the services. Students say Plateau Resources should take most responsibility since private companies in similar situations have typically played a major often very expensive-role in the development of a town. As part of the weekend project, students talked with rfxi dents, handed cut surveys, talked with subdividers and mining company officials and a town planner the company has hired. While they didn't come up with a master blueprint for the town, the students did try to answer some specific questions such as how to plan an appropriate street and how to finance permanent housing. The students are still sorting out their findings and recommendations, which they will send to the State Planning Coordinator's Office and others involved with Ticaboo in hopes of helping all concerned interests, says Bums. The student project, with its inventory of information about the town, will be used as a springboard for additional and longer term planning. In August, students will present their findings to the residents of Garfield County in an open public meeting. |