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Show Public Lands Grazing: Poison Or Protection? A recent Salt Lake Tribune editorial "Poisoning the well" ; overstepped the bounds of journalistic jour-nalistic integrity. The editorial '.accused us of "sleazy dealings", '"improper use of public ;money", "undermining the free ''market", "abusing precious natural nat-ural resources" and "wresting -grazing permits away from ; rightful owners". We would welcome the opportunity' to substantiate our 'contention that Bill Hedden, of ;the Grand Canyon Trust, and ;Grand Staircase-Es'calante National Monument managers improperly collaborated in a scheme to "permanently eliminate" elimi-nate" public lands grazing in 'violation of federal laws and regulations. ! Hedden did not seek to acquire grazing permits for the legal purpose of grazing livestock. live-stock. He paid ranchers, under pressure and restrictions from the monument, to "unconditionally "uncondition-ally relinquish" their grazing permits to the BLM. Prearranged BLM "commitments" "commit-ments" guaranteed that monument monu-ment managers would "permanently "perma-nently eliminate" grazing from the allotments - regardless of actual allotment conditions. . These actions are the very antithesis of public lands grazing graz-ing law and public process law "enacted by congress. The .scheme of pressure, carrot stick ;and grazing elimination also ;makes a mockery of the free market pretext. The state and county's actions justifiably creates a level playing field for the rancher and the livestock industry, which is an important part of our rural way of life, and is important to the economies of Garfield and Kane Counties. Despite the Tribune's grandiloquence grandil-oquence the actions of Hedden and monument managers cry for judicial and public review. Our legal actions will result in judi-. judi-. cial review. We also believe that the public deserves honest debate on the issue of public lands grazing. Maloy Dodds, Garfield County Commissioner ' Clare Ramsay, , , Garfield County Commissioner . Dell Lefevre, '. .' ,' '; Garfield County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw, Kane County Commissioner Daniel Hulet, Kane County Commissioner Tom Hatch, State Senator Mike Noel, State Representative Kim Lawson, Kanab City Mayor Richard Nicholas, Public Lands Chairman, Utah Cattlemens Association Worth Brown, President, Canyon Country Ranchers Association |
