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Show Commissioners Hold Final County Wilderness Hearing PANGUITCH Garfield County Commissioners held the ' county's final hearing on wilderness Monday night with about 45 people in attendance. The two-hour hearing hear-ing pointed up the difference between be-tween factions in the county who are pushing for zero wilderness designation and the county commission which has said in effect that they, too, want zero wilderness but don't see taking a stand for it as a real option open to them. "All three commissioners can guarantee that if we don't come up with reasonable recommendations that can be justified on maps as meeting wilderness criteria, someone some-one else will make the recommendations recommen-dations for us," said Commission Chairman Louise Liston on Tuesday. The commissioners seem unwilling to take that risk, and see making the county's own minimum recommendations for justifiable wilderness as the only solution. Many residents in the county, however, disagree, saying that zero wilderness is an option and they are compiling a separate document to submit to the governor, seeking signatures throughout the county in support of the zero wilderness position. posi-tion. Joel Greer, Boulder, who has been prominent in among those supporting zero wilderness said Tuesday that he agrees with a young man who spoke out at Monday night's meeting warning that Garfield County commissioners, commission-ers, by agreeing to wilderness for certain Wilderness Study Areas in the county, will be setting a precedent prece-dent that redefines wilderness, not as pristine but as areas that include man's intrusion. "There is not a WSA in Garfield County that does not have evidence of man's intrusion," intru-sion," Greer said. "Even Scorpion WSA which none of us thought had any intrusion has been identified as having fences, a windmill, water pipes and roads." Ted Stewart, Utah's Director of Natural Resources, spoke at the end of Monday night's meeting, saying unified effort by Utah's Congres- (See Commissioners Hold Final Wilderness Hearing on Page 4A) Commissioners Hold Final County Wilderness Hearing From Page 1 sional delegation and Governor Mike Leavitt should result in recommendations coming from the state more reasonable than the current 3.2-and 5.7-million acres of wilderness currently being proposed. pro-posed. Greer added a final plea to the commission to tell Governor Leavitt that no land in Garfield County qualifies as wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. Liston said she feels Utah's delegation del-egation can be fully trusted and that they, with Governor Mike Leavitt (not Governor Mike Leavitt alone as some have perceived) have worked hard to try to find a workable work-able solution. The commission has been working work-ing daily and will continue to do so, Liston said, until the county's recommendations rec-ommendations have been completed com-pleted in time for the Governor's April 1 deadline. At Monday night's meeting, en vironmentalists were noticeably absent, ab-sent, represented basically by Terry Tempest Williams, Salt lake City, who spoke in behalf of.wilderness. A large contingent of residents in favor of zero wilderness represented repre-sented the tmajority opinion at the meeting. Liston said that most experts believe be-lieve that extremes of position too much wilderness as opposed to none at all will probably be balanced bal-anced out with something in the middle. "It is important to be partners part-ners in the process," she said, "and not cut ourselves out. We'd rather designate our own coal reserves, our own potentially useful areas -and our own wilderness areas - than let someone else do it for us." Also present were Scott Hcr-shey, Hcr-shey, director of Utah's Institutional and Trust Lands, Jcanene Holt representing Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rick Ariel, representing Cong. Jim Hansen. |