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Show Comment Period Closing For Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Plan With the final days of the appeal period drawing to a close, the Garfield Gar-field County News continues its extraction ex-traction of critical information from the 400-page Proposed Management PlanFinal Environmental Impact Statement developed by the Bureau of Land Management's Planning Team for the Grand Stair-caseEscalante Stair-caseEscalante National Monument which was created by President Bill Clinton's proclamation on Sept. 18, 1996. The three-year period Clinton allowed al-lowed for the team to do its work has been fraught with controversy as Garfield and Kane County residents resi-dents opposing what they have per ceived as an unprecedented and illegal ille-gal "land-grab" have attempted to protect the rights they feel ' have been and may be taken away from them. Chapter 1 of the PMPFEIS describes de-scribes the "purpose and need ... for the document and identifies the issues is-sues to be addressed." In Chapter 2, the "general management direction" direc-tion" is set forth, with an "Introduction, Resource and Management Man-agement Objectives, Specific Resource Re-source Objectives and Actions, Zone Management Direction, Management Man-agement Across Zones, Special (See MONUMENT on Page 3A) Q n i This Grand Champion Lamb, exhibited by Autumn Excell, brought $812 to its owner when it was purchased by several businesses at the Southern Utah Junior Livestock Show in Richfield. i A faP I (l '.' A t' J ' " ; . X V. ; ; - This Grand Champion Hog, exhibited by Casey Christensen, brought $915 to its owner when it was purchased by several businesses at the Southern Utah Junior Livestock Show in Richfield. . , . , . - r :J f Vic; This Grand Champion Beef, exhibited by Ky Roundy of Boulder, was a winner at the Garfield County Fair over the weekend in Pang-utch at the Junior Livestock Show. The steer weighed 1185 pounds and is niru wnra nlH. MONUMENT From Front Page Emphasis Areas, and Cooperation and Consultation. Chapter 3, "Enviromental Consequences", "analyzes the potential impacts of implementation of the Proposed Plan. Chapter 4 "includes a summary sum-mary of public involvement, a collaborative col-laborative management strategy, a list of agencies and organizations receiving the document, and the lisl of preparers ..." Chapter 5 addresses ad-dresses public comments received on the Draft document released in November 1998 and includes responses re-sponses to them. Additional information extracted from the document follows: Aircraft Operations "The U.S. Department of Defense De-fense operates two Military Training Train-ing Routes across the Monument. ... Their operating altitudes can vary from the surface, using terrain-following terrain-following radar, up to 9.000 feet Mean Sea Level. The route width varies from 2 to 4 miles on either side of the centerline." The proposed pro-posed plan states that the BLM will work "cooperatively" with DOD to "ensure that military training routes are appropriate to Monument management." man-agement." Currently, air tour operators operating op-erating from Bryce Canyon, Kannh, St. george, Page and Las Vegas charter tours over the Monument upon request. The BLM plans to "work cooperatively with aircraft operators, adjacent land managing agencies, and the FAA to direct overflights to appropriate management manage-ment zones." There is one active airstrip located lo-cated in the Monument, part on Forest Service lands and part on BLM lands. The BLM plan proposes pro-poses a joint-agency Special Use Permit for its operation and "in order or-der to protect Monument resources, aircraft takeoff and landings would be allowed only at the New Home Bench airstrip." As far as entities, such as utility r companies or State agencies that use aircraft "for patrolling, monitoring monitor-ing and maintenance and repaii functions" ... Landing of aircraft for these purposes would be limited to the minimum necessary to meet the required maintenance or repair function." The plan proposes studying the effects of noise by utilizing visitor surveys and sound measuring in-struments in-struments "to determine what the noise baseline is for various areas within the Monument. Studies would be coordinated for areas that border adjacent National Parks currently Bryce Canyon and Capitol Capi-tol Reef." Utility Rights-of-Way and Communication Sites The plan states that Monument managers will work with local communities and utility providers to identify both long-and short-term projects that could affect the Monument. Any project requiring access or use of resources on the Monument would require National Environmental Policy Act analysis, analy-sis, in other words, either an Environmental Envi-ronmental Analysis or full Environmental Envi-ronmental Impact Statement. "Alternative locations for projects would be identified when unavoidable unavoid-able conflicts arise." The plan does not state whether the alternative location lo-cation would be on or off the Monument but does say, "such projects pro-jects would be focused in appropriate appropri-ate zones ..." Nor does the document docu-ment address costs to the utility or the taxpayer of "alternative locations." loca-tions." Diverting water from the Monument would not be permitted except possibly for local community commu-nity culinary needs "if the applicant appli-cant could demonstrate that the diversion di-version of water would not damage : Monument resources or- conflict with the objectives in the final approved ap-proved plan." "Clearly," said one frustrated Tropic resident, "the Proposed Plan appears to connsider the protection of sagebrush and remote mountains as significantly more important than the protection of human needs." "Communications sites would only be allowed in the Primitive Zone for safety purposes and where no other alternative exists." They would be permitted in the Frontcountry and Passage Zones, but only if they meet the regulated visual criteria. Such sites could be located in the Outback Zone only if no other possibilities exist, they meet the constraints of the zone and the visual objectives. On the map provided with the Proposed Plan, well some 95 percent of the Monument is designated Outback or Primitive. No vending will be allowed in either Outback or Primitive Zones and it is uncertain at this point how that may affect guides and outfitters outfit-ters currently operating in the Monument. Vending would be "occasional, infrequent, and could be allowed by permit only on a case-by-case basis in the Frontcountry and Passage Zones in association with approved special events or recreations sites." |