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Show It's No Betrayal Of Trust In last week's County News there was both an article and a letter to the editor on the final Wilderness hearing and the governor and the Utah Congressional delegation's position on the Wilderness issue. We would like to respond to some of the concerns and comments expressed in both. It was implied that we would be setting a precedent that "will redefine rede-fine Wilderness, not as pristine, but as areas that include man's intrusions." intru-sions." The people of this county need to know that we, along with staff, our recorder, and numerous willing volunteers have spent weeks poring over dozens of different sources, maps, mineral reports, letters, let-ters, comments, etc. to make certain we eliminate those very areas from our recommendation. We have jointly come to the conclusion that the easy way out would be to say "No Wilderness," but to do so, in our minds, would be letting others, primarily those sitting sit-ting back in Washington, D.C., determine de-termine our destiny and do our designating des-ignating for us. We have firmly resolved not to let that happen. We have carefully researched and documented doc-umented every Wilderness Study Area's (WSA's) mineral potential, water rights, grazing rights, existing pre-FLPMA and post-FLPMA mineral, oil and gas leases, man's intrusions, etc. In doing so, we have noted discrepancies dis-crepancies in the Citizen Group's Proposal. Many of their listed intrusions in-trusions are inside the BLM's All Wilderness proposal (3.2 million acres), but are outside the final partial par-tial recommendation (1.9 million acres). We understand that it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to determine exact boundaries in some instances, but Mr. Joel Greer's comments on the Scorpion WSA's having "fences, a windmill and water pipes, and roads" is a good example of error. In truth, after af-ter studying the area carefully, we found the "windmill and pipeline" (and a water tank) are located on Early Weed Bench which is not even included in a WSA, that the "fences" in Garfield County consist of one drift fence across the Twenty-five-Mile Wash, and our proposed boundary excludes that fence and a section of land north of that fence that contained an area of concern to local ranchers. The only other road in question is the Egypt Road which borders the WSA on the west and leads to the Egypt Trailhead. We have excluded that small section of that road leading directly from the main road to the trailhead that intrudes into the WSA. With those exclusions, Garfield County's Wilderness recommendations rec-ommendations for the Scorpion WSA has no intrusions. Kane County must make its own decision about what to do with the portion of Scorpion WSA that lies within its borders. In the BLM's Final Wilderness Proposal, four of the 18 WSA's in the county were withdrawn because of mineral, oil and gas potential, intrusions, in-trusions, roads, etc. or they did not possess sufficient Wilderness characteristics char-acteristics for designation. In Garfield County's Wilderness Proposal, 13 of the 18 WSA's will be withdrawn because of mineral, oil and gas potential, intrusions, roads, etc. Despite Mr. Greer's claims to the contrary, Texas does have federal fed-eral lands: three national forests, one national seashore, two national parks plus military bases. We also take issue with Mr. Greer's statement that "compromise is the dictate." Rather, the dictate is the criteria set forth in the 1964 Wilderness Act. We believe that if areas do not fit the criteria, they should not be designated as Wilderness. Wilder-ness. True, much of the language of that act is not specificaljy defined and therefore controversial, but we have chosen to define many of those terms in our introductory remarks. By so doing, we hope to be able to strengthen and validate our position of recommending considerably con-siderably fewer acres than the BLM's final recommendation. In our proposal, we have excluded ex-cluded lands that have mineral leases, oil and gas leases, important water rights, lands that are under- lain with coal and tar sands deposits, de-posits, lands with cabins, fences, corrals, reservoirs, roads, and cherry-stemmed roads. These are priority lands that environmentalists would love to see closed to all future fu-ture development. If we propose a "No Wilderness" recommendation, we could lose all those areas, and we simply cannot take that chance. We are maintaining that the highest and best use of those lands ,must be carefully weighed to protect the livelihoods of people and the economic eco-nomic stability of Garfield County. On the other hand, we have areas ar-eas in our county where a cow cannot can-not even graze effectively, that do meet Wilderness criteria, and the loss of which would have no adverse ad-verse effect on the economy. These are the areas that we are willing to give up in order to exclude from Wilderness designation those that are vital to our future. The commission is also proposing propos-ing that approximately 369,774 acres of Wilderness be designated in Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in those lands that lie within our boundaries. In conclusion, please rest assured as-sured that we are not compromising our lands, nor are we betraying the trust you have placed in us as your elected officials. I Louise Listen Maloy Dodds Clare Ramsay Garfield County Commissioners |
