| OCR Text |
Show 1 Public reviews BLM Wilderness draft The public hearing held in Cedar City last Friday to outline the procedure whereby all "roadless areas" administered by the Bureau of . Land Management will be evaluated for "wilderness characteristics" dirt not meet with a lot of positive feedback. feed-back. But not all was negative, however. BLM officials emphasized that the public review of the procdures involved in-volved in the wilderness study was dictated by the Federal Land Management and Policy Act of 1976 (commonly known as FLIPMA or Uie Organic Act). They also emphasized that it is the United States Congress, not the BLM, that will make the final decision as to what is or is not "wilderness." "Federal agencies apparently do not consider what the other agencv is doing to be of any importance," Representative S. Garth Jones said, reading a prepared statement from the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce Com-merce Executive Board. Jones said agencies should bear in mind that wilderness or "primitive" areas have already been designated by other federal and state agencies. "Part of the review process ought to include cooperation with other land agencies," Jones stated. "All together it could add up to more than 100 percent." Pointed out as examples are similar "wilderness" movements by the U.S. Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service. "The land managers ought to be on the same timetable," he said. "Some wilderness can be tolerated, but there ought to be more cooperation on the decision." Mark Walsh, representative of the Utah Association of counties, said the earlier National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires such cooperation between federal agencies. agen-cies. He said it was apparently a "violation of the intent of congress," for each land agency to conduct their own wilderness review separately. "The citizens of Iron County can't comment adequately without knowing what else is coming behind," he said. Comments should not be gathered in an accumulating, piecemill fashion, he added. After stern questioning from the 40 or so gathered, local BLM District Manager Morgan Jensen assured the group "local wilderness decisions will be made on a local level." Citizens making comments stated they hoped the local and state BLM officers "will represent our views, not dictate to us someone else's views." Local Senator Ivan Matheson expressed ex-pressed concern that the wilderness review ought to include an economic impact study. Using Tropic as an example, Matheson said, often the wilderness designations cut off prime sources of water and other uses in adjacent lands. If you consider the present national parks and wilderness areas in southern Utah, and combine them with the proposed Forest Service Wilderness areas, and the BLM proposed wilderness areas, and add to that the 60 mile radious around such areas as dictated by the Clean Air Act, you have completely cut off development in southern Utah," Matheson declared. "Will that be considered in your review." The BLM officials showed a slide presentation to explain the various steps in the wilderness review, which is slated to continue until 1991. Included In-cluded in the FLIPMA review are 55 (nationwide) "instant study areas." These will receive immediate attention at-tention because of their obvious potential for wilderness. Eleven of the 55 are in Utah, 10 in southern Utah. The majority of the 10 are in Garfield Gar-field County, in the Escalante River Basin, causing one Garfield County resident to claim the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM has complete control of the area. "Garfield County is completely locked up in wilderness ' areas," he said. "You are already shutting off roads. There is nothing left in Garfield County." The BLM reps said the wilderness status will prescribe a "minumum of disruption for the land's present multiple, use status. Jensen also said grazing "may" continue on wilderness wilder-ness status land, as long as it does not alter its status as a primitive area. |
