| The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry will reopen in March and an open house will be held the last weekend in April. |
Roger Bankert from the Bureau of Land Management gave the Emery County commission an update on BLM activities. He said he has been in the area five months now and is enjoying it very much. There were some projects he inherited when becoming the field director and also new projects they have begun. He said the Resource Management Plan that has been worked on for a few years should be complete by June 30, 2008. When complete it will be available for public review and open houses will be scheduled. “We will work to keep the county involved in the process and that’s moving along. The dedication for the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry will be held April 28. If we can’t get someone from the Washington Office for the dedication then we will just have an open house.
“Tentatively set on May 1-2 will be a visit to the Price Field Office from the state director. She also wants to visit with the Emery and Carbon county commissioners,” said Bankert.
Bankert said he heard a concern from Emery County Sheriff LaMar Guymon regarding the law enforcement contract between Emery County and the BLM. He will try to find out the situation with the contract and will push for it to stay in place. He reported the road in Turtle Canyon will remain open to where the barricade is located. Bankert said ATV groups from all over the state had participated in a trespass case restoration project at Devils racetrack.
Commissioner Drew Sitterud reported the statewide BLM RAC will meet in Castle Dale on May 2. They will have their all day meeting on May 2 at the county building and on May 1 they will tour Nine Mile Canyon.
Bankert said at that RAC meeting the BLM will bring up the fee increase for Desolation Canyon and request to raise the fee from $18 per person to $25.
Commissioner Sitterud pointed out all fee increase requests for both the US Forest Service and the BLM must now be brought before the BLM RAC for consideration. He also pointed out last month Moab had requested fee increases on campgrounds and the BLM RAC took the increases under advisement.
Mesia Nyman from the USFS gave an update to the commission on forest projects. She said small timber sales are being completed and the NEPA has been done for these projects. The Lake timber project was appealed by the environmental community and the USFS is doing more analysis on that project; it is a 5 million board feet project. Bids for that project are hoped to be out later this year.
Prescribed burns will take place in the Pines and West Scofield. “On grazing, this has not been a good year for snowpack, but we don’t expect any reductions for permittees. We have sent a letter to permittees indicating that and we expect to go on as usual. We are wrapping up the Bear Canyon coal lease and a lease at SUFCO. Dominion will begin drilling their wells this year.
“There will be a wildland fuels reduction at Black Dragon. This will reduce juniper invasion,” said Nyman. The forest service is also looking at a new ATV trail on Skyline and a snowmobiler parking lot at Big Drift on the Skyline. Work will also be done on an ATV trail up Ferron Creek. In the fall the forest service hopes to publish a motor vehicle use map which will show which size vehicle is legal on which road. This will be a legal document. There were 40 special use permits issued last fall for the Manti. Nyman said she will do a presentation in the Emery County Public Lands Council where she will talk about the cost recovery system they will begin using to help recoup some of the costs for processing these permits.