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Show County Commissioners Meet With Federal Agencies In Quarterly Meeting On Jan. 9 PANGUITCH Garfield County Commissioners met for their quarterly meeting with representatives repre-sentatives of federal and state agencies agen-cies on Jan. 9 with Commissioners Louise Liston and Clare Ramsay. Commissioner Maloy Dodds was attending meetings in St. George. The meetings were set up by the county so that area agencies can keep them abreast of ongoing activities acti-vities and projects. Present were representatives from Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, the U.S. Forest For-est Service, the Southwest Utah Public Health Department, and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Also present was Garfield County Engineer Brian Bremner. Marvin Turner, ranger at Teas-dale Teas-dale Ranger District, USFS, said that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has planned its elk count for Boulder Mountain for mid-January. mid-January. He said no count was conducted last year, the last having been done in 1995 by fixed-wing aircraft. This year's count will be conducted by helicopter. He said he will coordinate with Kevin Schul-koski Schul-koski at the Escalante District. There will be room for one permittee, permit-tee, a USFS person, and a DWR person to participate. He said an accurate count is important to keep within the parameters set by the management plan for elk. A good snow cover makes it easier to count elk, he told the commission. Turner reported that the Boulder Top Plan is to close a few roads, improve the main road, and improve im-prove some fisheries. He said they had received some money to improve im-prove the road along the top. He said the proposal is to improve the main road but to close off some of the single-track roads, along with a closure of two lakes. He said that a public hearing had been held a few years ago, but additional hearings will probably be held because of concerns about road closures. Turner said the Forest Service would like to keep some of the fisheries as walk-in recreation. He said alternatives for the area will be considered before the final proposal. Turner said that Forest Service personnel who were close to retirement retire-ment had been offered a buy-out, but most had found it uninviting and had elected to remain on. Kevin Schulkoski, ranger at the Escalante District, USFS, told the commission that there were big Changes with the announcement of a new chief, Mike Dombeck, for the Forest Service. Dombeck had taken over on Jan. 1, leaving the Bureau of Land Management to do so. Commissioner Liston said she had read a letter from the new director in which he had stated that "preservation of the land matters most" regardless of the entity one works for, federal, state or local. That one sentence had given her a little cause for concern, she said. Schulkoski said he had read only a biography about his new director and was not familiar with the letter Liston had referred to. Liston said the commission feels encouraged because Dombeck is familiar with the west. Schulkoski informed the commission com-mission that a complaint challenging challen-ging the USFS decision to remove and sell timber had been filed in Federal District Court on Dec. 13 against the Jacobs Swail Timber Sale. When the commissioners inquired about who had filed the complaint, Schulkoski said it is a matter of public record that it had been filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Association, the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club, and the Boulder Mountain Wilderness Committee. Com-mittee. He said the six-sale proposal involves some 21 million board feet of green timber. He said they had a tentative high bidder on an earlier sale but the USFS is withholding with-holding awarding the contract until the resolution of the complaint. He said there are 60 days in which to file motions. Liston asked if the complaint could affect the mill in Escalante, and Schulkoski said he had inquiries from the mill regarding the sale. The Commission asked Schulkoski to keep them informed on the subject. |