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Show More On Last Week's Grazing EIS Scoping Meeting In Escalante ESCALANTE The Garftela County News continues its coverage cover-age of the Grazing Environmental Impact Statement scoping meeting for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument held Wednesday, Wednes-day, Oct. 4. Because of the poor acoustics, it was often hard to tell who commented. com-mented. Participants in the meeting's meet-ing's first breakout session continue con-tinue to respond to the first of five questions they were asked to respond re-spond to: - What specific goals should guide grazing management within the Grand Staircase-Escalante Staircase-Escalante National Monument? Escalante resident Rick Crawford Craw-ford had suggested that grazing should be a foremost goal for the monument. Marietta Eaton, BLM facilitator, said, "Let's get in his comment. How can we put grazing back as a primary goal? ... I'd say one of the main goals ought to be to improve the land so that we're able to graze more livestock. Crawford said that since the BLM had managed the land, less diversity di-versity of use has existed. "If it was left to private managers, I think they would have increased it and the land would be healthier ... I think they would do a better job than the BLM because they have a concern for the land for the cattle and they want it to be productive and increase." Another comment from the group: "Ever since they turned those areas over to the. ranchers that they have up north, they have increased in-creased their grazing." "People that care about it take care of it and know how to manage it," said Crawford. "Because they have more of a vested interest ..." said Eaton. " We've been doing it all our lives and the BLM people just come here for a year or so," said Escalante Mayor Marjie Spencer "I hate to keep speaking up but one of the things...", said Crawford. "Well I'm going to cut you off for a minute and let somebody else speak," said Eaton. "Because you've got good ideas but I don't want to leave anybody out." An unidentified participant remarked, re-marked, " There's only one problem with this and that is the BLM comes in and sometimes they might have come from a place, say, with a lot more moisture, and so they judge our country by that. And it takes about two, or three or four years to educate them and then you transfer them. And then we got to start all over." " So the background of a BLM employee may not be adapted to our environment," summarized Eaton. "And the first thing they look at is, 'it's going down hill,' when it actually could be coming up hill," came another comment. "Background of BLM employee may be not -of an arid environment," environ-ment," summarized Eaton. Another comment: "They come from another environment and they don't stay long. Just about the time we get them educated they leave. And some of them you just can't educate," Marietta Eaton: "I captured your idea ... that the BLM does not have that historic knowledge." Gary Johnson: "Along with this, you'll have some guy come in and he'll be good to work with and another guy will come in and he'll be the exact opposite. Regardless of their feelings, ... they need to be consistent." ' "So inconsistency in their style....," said Eaton. . "How about water development and range management, fencing or that. If that is not allowed now, because of it being a national monument, then we will be handicapped handi-capped if we can't develop sources of water," commented Bob Ott. "Allow water development, range development," said Eaton. "We need to start incorporating new science," said Crawford. "New science is showing large undulates, cows, whatever, the buffalo were there before the cows. You look at all the desert, the dry conditions in the world, they have large numbers of grazing animals. You look at the Saragetti of Africa. Science is actually showing that the historical, long term use of the land by these large animals has actually improved the health and viability of the land. I can go to areas that are grazed out on the desert on a regular basis and they're a lot healthier than the areas that have not been grazed. It doesn't take very much intelligence to come to the conclusion that nature na-ture intended for large grazing animals ani-mals to turn land over and use the land and fertilize the land." Marietta Eaton: "So incorporate new science to manage the land, historical records, reference I also want to tie this specifically to what he is saying about the grazing." Another comment: "They showed some pictures on channel 7 of that same thing. They showed some range that was grazed up north and range that wasn't. And it was by far a better piece of range than one that was just laying dor- mant." Marietta Eaton: "So, maintain or increase numbers?" Comment: "Yes, permits should be at full strength." Marietta Eaton: "To accomplish a healthy system or range." "And some type of administrative administra-tive continuity," suggested Gary Johnson. "We were working with another agency on something and the guy we were working with transferred. Five months later they brought in another person that knew nothing about what was going go-ing on and we had to go back to square one." Rick Crawford : "That's been one of my frustrations working with the monumentBLM is you've got unqualified people trying to dictate dic-tate the things that are happening and it's not science." "Any kind of management is void without predator control," said Bob Ott. "We've got to have predator preda-tor control in the management plan." Rick Crawford said reseeding is a must and Bob Ott pointed out again the need for predator control and animal balance. "So management needs to maintain the balance," interpreted Eaton. A comment from group, "And open up some of these areas closed to grazing, that are going down the tubes, to improve the health of the land." And another comment: "Put open areas to grazing to improve the health of the range." Eaton introduced the second question: "What concerns do you have regarding specific effects of livestock grazing management on socioeconomic conditions of individual indi-vidual permittees and the surrounding surround-ing communities?" Eaton listed Bob Ott's comment as "Loss of grazing can have a devastating dev-astating effect on the community." "And on the local economy," another person added. "I think," said Crawford, " when the buffalo were completely wiped out, for hides and what have you that the whole plains suffered because be-cause of it. ... We put the buffalo out but we've got the cattle and other animals taking their niche, and if we just completely remove the cattle, I think that it's going to affect the whole biodiversity of wildlife." Bob Ott: "What about grazing fees? There's got to be some balance bal-ance in that to fix it to be economically economi-cally feasible to graze." Marietta Eaton: "I'm not sure exactly what you mean there?" Ott: "If they raise the grazing fees to a certain level, they can wipe out the grazing." Marietta Eaton - So the raising of grazing fees sort of eliminates... Comment: "And that doesn't mean it has to be the same as private pri-vate grazers. There's a big difference differ-ence between the two." "Is it more expensive in private grazing?" asked Eaton. " Private grazing you have like a 100 percent calf crop you're selling a 500-pound calf or so. On the range you have 65 to 75 percent and you've got 300 pound calves," commented a rancher. "Yeah, they don't have to wander wan-der to get water," offered another. In private grazing the land owner takes care of the land; here it's getting get-ting where the rancher has to take care of his own land on BLM watering holes, fences ..." "Well," said Eaton, "there was a concern about the permittees responsibility re-sponsibility for maintaining those on public lands." "The Taylor Grazing Act used ,to do all the watering holes, all the fences and all the trails. And they just kept sloughing it off and sloughing it off on to ranchers," commented another rancher. "They got it right down to where the rancher has to do the whole thing.", "That's what your grazing fees are supposed to pay for," said Crawford, Craw-ford, " maintaining that." " Now they've cut the roads off to where you can't get in to the watering wa-tering holes," said another. Nancy Twitchell said, "You talk about socioeconomic impacts and you see it from generation to generation. gen-eration. The younger people don't want to put up with what they've seen their fathers having to go through where there are more and more restrictions. ... It's like putting a stranglehold on it, on your young people ... you're culturally cul-turally losing it." Eaton: - Okay. That's a great comment. I'm just trying to think how to synthesize it. Younger generations cannot maintain the grazing lifestyle because ..." "Because there are too many hoops to jump through," finished Twitchell. "The main thing about grazing is it's mostly a family operation," commented another Nancy Twitchell, "Well, it has been traditionally family and ... the younger generation they see ' what their parents have had to go through, and are going through, and they think it's a losing proposition: " Family operations and grazing traditions are being lost to the next generation due to government regulations," regu-lations," summarized Eaton. Comment: "Bureaucracy!" Comment: "Too much hassle." " Regulations, bureaucracy, control?" con-trol?" asked Eaton. Comment: "Yeah. We used to i have a different manager and we had .' a board that was made up of the j ranchers. They ran this whole area j Kanab, Escalante, Tropic all that area. And look at it today. j When you people ... for just this I meeting you've got a lot more people here (BLM) than we had to j run the whole southern area. And j probably you've only got one third j of your staff here. If that." i " If that," agreed Eaton. Comment: "That's the difference differ-ence ... we had one range manager." "The Grazing Advisory Board. And traditionally that was a very cohesive group. A lot of things brought them together and I think we need to see that again. That co-hesiveness," co-hesiveness," commented another. "So as of right now," said Eaton, Ea-ton, There are some concerns about changes in the BLM and how it's growing too and how it's affected. So there's a ratio difference in the numbers of employees and the BLM ..." Nancy Twitchell: "Well, you don't know from election to election elec-tion what's going to happen with your own organization ..." Eaton: "True." " If we had an advisory board of ranchers to meet with the BLM once a month or once every two months, it would certainly maybe help take a lot of pressure off the ranchers," commented another rancher. " An advisory board made up of permittees, ranchers to meet. Would this be kind of on behalf of all..." asked Eaton. Marjie Spencer: "Well the government gov-ernment too needs to get in closer touch on what's going on." Comment: "We had one or two from here, one or two from Tropic and Kanab and those areas ..." " I think we captured it,: said Eaton, sumarizing. "Advisory board to meet with BLM made up of permittees and ranchers." "Something that concerns me is access," said Bob Ott. "We're living liv-ing in an age now of truck and trailer, whereas it used to be pack horse and horse. So we need access i to the grazing allotments. ...The i lifestyle has changed dramatically from what it was 30 to 40 years ago." Eaton: "That's not a very long time either when you think of it, 20 to 30 years. It's pretty amaz- j ing. j Comment: "The best way to tell ! if someone is in debt or not is if they're driving a decent pickup and j dragging a horse trailer." j (More comments, questions and answers next week.) ! ! i |
