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Show National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area: Who's Really In Control? Editor 's Note: We re-publish the second in a four-part series last published in August 2003, asking our readers to read carefully care-fully and seriously consider the potential impact of Senator Robert F. Bennett's Senate Bill 916 which is trying for the third time to create a Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area Second in A Series By Toni Thayer Signed into law by Pres. William Clinton, the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 established estab-lished a program of national heritage her-itage areas under the dominion of the National Park Service (NPS). Currently, there are 23 National Heritage Areas in the NPS program. According to the NPS web-page, web-page, Frequently Asked Questions their employees (See HERITAGE on page 4A) National Heritage Area From Front Page are "partners with local community commu-nity activists in organizing and planning a Heritage Area" through a signed cooperative agreement with "mutually shared goals". NPS acts as the technical expert, assisting "with all stages of this process, from the identification identi-fication of important resources to planning for preservation, interpretation and the education of future generations." Utah's Sen. Bob Bennett's pending bill, S. 916, to establish the National Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area along 250 miles of Highway 89 from northern Arizona into central Utah, allocates allo-cates 15 years of assistance by NPS and up to $1 million per year (with a total program maximum max-imum of $10 million) available until 2020, to a private nonprofit nonprof-it for management and funding of individual projects. According to the NPS web-page, web-page, Heritage Area managers must develop a Management Plan within the first three years of the Congressional designation designa-tion and submit it to the Dept. of Interior (DOI, the managing agency for NPS) for their approval. If DOI rejects the Management Plan, they make recommendations for reyisions as they deem appropriate. Distribution of the 50-50 matching match-ing Federal grant funds is tied to DOI's approval , of , the Management Plan. Once approved. the NPS prepares pre-pares an Environmental Impact -Statement (EIS), an extensive study showing the impacts of the proposed Federal actions, for the Management Plan and lists it on the Federal Register (the public's official notification of significant actions that require public comments) as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Two major steppingstones required by NPS in the Federal designation process are public involvement and widespread public support by Heritage Area residents, but Utahns don't like the idea of approving a Federal designation for private lands without first knowing what actions, controls and changes are involved. According to Spring City resident res-ident Brad Van Dyke in a telephone tele-phone interview on Aug. 11, "We're concerned about the loss of individual private property rights and also the loss of community com-munity rights. Marketing and promotion of the area could cause a land speculation boom that would drive up the cost of land but only give meager service serv-ice wages in return." Van Dyke and others up and down the highway corridor are voicing their concerns and asking ask-ing for notification to the public through advertised meetings and notices. Chris Mellen from Fountain Green said in an Aug. 11 telephone tele-phone interview, "No one knows anything about Bennett's proposal. I'm concerned that the Federal government will be taking over the corridor. Fountain Green is not even on Highway 89; we're 15 miles away. I'm afraid they're getting rid of agriculture too, and we depend on agriculture down here to survive." "The Sevier River runs parallel paral-lel with Highway 89, and it runs through a lot of private land. It makes sense that the Federal government would want control of that area too," said Steve Gessig of Escalante. "The Federal designation could make it more difficult in the future for irrigators to improve their dams. If they're going to bring in more automobiles, they'll also be bringing in more potential pollution pollu-tion to the river. This could mean stricter management and preservation actions." Bennett's bill gives management manage-ment authority of the NPS Highway 89 heritage area to the private nonprofit, the Utah Heritage Highway 89 Alliance (Alliance). The Executive Director for the Alliance, who is also a Mt. Pleasant city councilman, council-man, Monte Bona, said in an Aug. 4 telephone interview that county commissioners were informed 'of the Heritage Area project, but responses from local county officials indicate otherwise. other-wise. Clare Ramsay, Garfield County Commissioner, said in a telephone interview on Aug. 12, "The only meeting I remember was quite awhile ago. It was a regular commission meeting as an agenda item. The man who did the presentation just wanted to give us the county commissioners commis-sioners an update on Bennett's plan. Bennett's bill was not introduced at that time. It was a short presentation, and he left us a book on it. It wasn't a public hearing or even a posted public meeting." On Aug. 11, Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said in a telephone interview that a representative from Sen. Bennett's office was meeting with the commissioners that day. He also remembered another meeting with Sen. Bennett on the heritage area, "I recall one Panguitch meeting a few months ago for Garfield and Kane county commissioners. Since then, I've only seen pamphlets." pam-phlets." Neither Bona nor Gary Anderson of the Utah State University Sanpete County Extension office, who performed per-formed feasibility studies for Bennett's bill when it was introduced intro-duced in 2002, could provide the names of the Alliance's current cur-rent board of directors. In a July 31 telephone interview, inter-view, Anderson explained, "There's transition going on. The Alliance's board has changed from reps of each of six categories like shops, ownersoperators, tours, and artists. It's going to chapters with reps from the counties. Each county will elect up to three representatives on the board of directors of the Heritage Highway or whatever we call it. The counties have until September 2003 to elect their reps." Habbeshaw was not aware that the counties were supposed to be making their selections for representatives to serve on the Alliance's board, he said "Senator Bennett explained his concepts and the status of the (See HERITAGE on page 5A) Heritage From Page 4A bill, but that's it." Although there is no management manage-ment plan yet, or even a draft plan, for the proposed Utah Heritage Area, there are management man-agement plans for similarly des-, ignated sites around the nation." Rivers and river valleys seem to be an integral part of many of them. According to the Federal Register, management plans', goals can include: (A) Assignment of duties for the partners involved (governmental agencies and private nonprofit groups) "to protect the resources' of the Heritage Area". (B) An inventory list of all properties, "that should be preserved, restored, managed, developed, or maintained". (C) Recommendations for resource management policies that apply "appropriate land and water management techniques". (D) The managing group's plan to. implement the Heritage Area. (E) An analysis showing how to coordinate "local, State, and Federal programs". (F) An "interpretation plan for the Heritage Area". It is true, just as Bennett's bill says, the Federal designation does not, in itself, change or effect land use authority and private pri-vate property laws. However, to be part of the NPS program and receive their grant funding, "local citizens" must give up their control of the Heritage Area to Federal standards, management, man-agement, and final approval. Our coverage continues next week as we look at the "bigger picture" for National Heritage Areas. |