Lands council discusses Public Lands Initiative

By PATSY STODDARD Editor

The Emery County Public Lands Council met in a work meeting to go over the recently released draft of the Public Lands Initiative. This draft was prepared by the staffs of Rep. Rob Bishop and Rep. Jason Chaffetz.
Each council member was instructed to bring concerns to the meeting. Ray Petersen, public lands director said the boundary on the east side of Nelson Mountain needs to be changed. The draft bill used the boundary which encompasses the five new golf holes at Millsite Golf Course and also motorized trails in the area. This will need to be looked at. Petersen said trails in this area wash out a lot and mechanized trail work needs to be allowed. Set backs are needed for the wilderness areas.
New to Emery County was the inclusion of a Cedar Mountain Wilderness area, this area was not recommended by Emery County lands council. Randy Johnson, public lands consultant said each of the counties involved received something like this, an extra area. The Cedar Mountain area is defined by roads. There are 17,355 acres in this area. There is grazing in this area and interesting rugged geology.
Bruce Wilson, council member said on the north boundary of Mexican Mountain the council an enforceable border up in the ledges.
Rod Player, council chairman said on the many field trips taken with the legislative offices, they stressed the importance of following the contours of the lands for the borders.
Goblin Valley expansion borders were the same as the council recommended. The BLM will manage the grazing and the state parks will manage the recreation in Goblin Valley. As part of the Goblin Valley expansion, state parks director Fred Hayes would like to reopen the Muddy Trail. This trail has been closed since 1976.
The Bureau of Land Management is working on an MOU for the bouldering areas. The BLM will pay SITLA a lease every year for this bouldering ground. An outdoor group has agreed to pay the BLM so they can pay SITLA for the lease.
This would be a good area for SITLA to trade out. The tradeouts of SITLA land from within the wilderness and NCA designations will be a long process. It will not be part of the Public Lands Initiative but will be handled separately and will be based on land values not acre by acre trades.
The BLM won’t trade for any land that’s already leased.
The group went over the land conveyances which includes the landfill, shooting range, part of Millsite, trails by Emery and the Huntington airport expansion area, land near Woodside for a monitoring station for the nuclear power plant should it be built, 80 acres for the Buckhorn Information Center. These will remain BLM lands, but will be leased to the county. All these lands will be managed according to their original use.
There are no buffer zones or view sheds attached to the wilderness and National Conservation areas.
Comments are being taken on the Antiquities Language and on the draft bill as a whole. Johnson said limited use of the Antiquities Act is acceptable, not for large tracts of land. He also said the environmental groups will object to any limits on the use of the Antiquities Act.
Petersen and Johnson said there needs to be specific information on what you’re trying to protect with limited acres for any use of the Antiquities Act.
Petersen said he will prepare comments to submit which will address the concerns of the council. These include Cedar Mountain, boundaries need to make sense and follow natural landmarks, there needs to be an advisory council for each of the National Conservation Areas.