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Show fate Ben Carter, 18, of Escalante bagged this beauty an Friday - he's not telling where. It's his third year of hunting, the second on the archery arch-ery hunt The 3x4, 220-pound buck was taken with a compound bow. Hunting alone, Ben had a challenge toting it out, but his smile says it was worth it. Sixty People Attend Sixth GSENM Scoping Meeting TROPIC Some 60 persons met last Wednesday evening for one of 15 scheduled scoping workshops designed to gather public input to help with planning for the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, created nearly a year ago on Sept. 18, 1996. The meeting held at Bryce Valley High School with the second largest attendance thus far, was the sixth of the scoping meetings. Attending were County Commissioner Com-missioner Clare Ramsay, Tropic Mayor Jean Seiler, Henrieville Mayor Guy Thompson, Dave Terry with Utah State Trust Lands, Bryce Canyon National Park Superintendent Fred Fager- gren and a dozen members of the BLM monument planning team. Associate Monument Manager Mana-ger Kate Cannon gave introductions intro-ductions and welcomed workshop participants, explaining that the evening was the sixth in a series of workshops and would be broken into three portions. Ken Size-more, Size-more, formerly with Five County Association of Governments but serving in the capacity of community com-munity planning and economic (See GSENM Scoping Meeting On Page 5-A) GSENM Meeting From Front Page analysis witn the monument team, narrated the opening slide presentation. This was followed by four small workgroups divided up in four parts of the auditorium to discuss and receive local input on the management of the monument. monu-ment. Finally, the small work groups were to return to the main auditorium for individual meetings meet-ings with team planners. Nothing profound issued forth from the workshop participants, nothing that hadn't come out a thousand times before except in different scoping and planning meetings. The air was fairly calm and remained so throughout but this was not meant to be an evening of hard questions with realistic answers. This was just the beginning of the process. The workshop organizers noted that point time and again throughout the evening: this was a night for "gathering input," not fielding and answering tough questions. Workshop participants picked up a "Visions Kit" as they entered the auditorium and each kit had a colored dot affixed to it. At the appropriate time in the evening the large group broke down into four smaller workgroups to try to elicit as much pertinent data as team members could write down. Each Vision Kit contained a map and descriptions of the landscapes within the monuments; the guiding principles princi-ples for the planning process and a worksheet with questions designed de-signed to help participants think creatively about the future of the monument. Each workshop was well organized and conducted. Many of the same wishes and hopes for management of the monument were expressed in each of the four groups. Throughout the sessions, workshop facilitators reminded participants how important it was to jot down their many ideas and summit them to the planning team on their' worksheets. Among the many diverse thoughts expressed were: allow free access to the monument; let the monument remain as multiple use; allow hunting, camping, recreational use and firewood gathering; continue with prospecting pros-pecting in the monument coal mining and timber harvesting, ranching, grazing; and development develop-ment of water resources within the monument were encouraged. With respect to roads, comments ranged from providing a variety of travel experiences to maintaining existing roads, developing devel-oping new roads, doing nothing to roads, and leaving them as they now are. Others said it was important for those in ill health and handicapped to be able to see and experience the monument. Others said it was important to plan for search and rescue, additional law enforcement coverage, cover-age, fire coverage and medical facilities. Some wanted unstructured unstruc-tured recreation for ATV's and horses on roads within the monument, monu-ment, still others wanted ability to use and access the important inholdings within the monument. Others desired to maintain the remoteness and the clean air with limited access. Many were for leaving the developing of camping camp-ing and lodging facilities to existing cities, while others were concerned with dealing with human hu-man waste within the monument. No one seemed to want or desire additional federal intervention in their lives but many understood someone has to be accountable. All participants seemed to want to protect "life as they know it in rural Utah" and equally protect pro-tect the "natural wonders" but just how to do is the task at hand. It was apparent from the comments that "visitor education" about the intricacies of the monument was at the top of the list. |