The last several million years: Aeons of sedimentation, vulcanism, wind and water erosion, and tectonic upheaval produce one of the most fantastic, mysterious and beautiful landscapes on the planet. What was once an ocean bed is left exposed to the forces of nature to sculpt magnificent canyons from desert plateaus.
Late 1800s: Road building, grazing, mining, and other activities begin to leave their mark on the Utah landscape. The impacts of human activities remain for decades in the fragile desert landscape.
1964: Congress passes the Wilderness Act, which allows certain federal lands to be preserved in their natural state as officially designated wilderness.
1976: The Federal Lands Policy Management Act (FLPMA) is passed, instructing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to conduct an inventory of potential wilderness study areas (WSAs). These WSAs will be given interim protection until Congress acts on Utah wilderness.
1979-84: The anti-wilderness BLM of this era uses a variety of dubious rationales to disqualify Wilderness Study Areas. Eventually they whittle their inventory down to only 1.9 million acres out of 22 million BLM acres in Utah. 1984-89:
Concerned citizens begin to conduct their own wilderness inventory. Despite having many fewer resources than the BLM, they manage find much more potential wilderness. Via a series of appeals, the BLM is forced to add some of these additional areas to its inventory. Eventually the BLM recognizes 3.2 million acres of WSAs, still far short of the true total.
1989: Utah Congressman Wayne Owens introduces H.R.1500, "America's Redrock Wilderness Bill," which calls for the protection of the 5.4 million acres of wilderness identified thus far in the Citizen's Inventory.
1990: The Citizen's Inventory catalogs another 300,000 acres of wilderness, bringing the total to 5.7 million acres. Though the inventory is still not complete, work on it stops and environmentalists shift their efforts toward protecting the wilderness identified thus far.
1993: Congressman Maurice Hinchey assumes sponsorship of H.R.1500. The bill is updated to include 5.7 million acres.
1996: The Utah Wilderness Coalition begins to reinventory Utah wildlands. The goals of the reinventory are to (1) identify areas within the old inventory which have been scarred by development and longer qualify as wilderness, and (2) complete the original inventory and obtain a wilderness catalog which represents the full geographical and biological diversity of Utah.
Also in 1996: Upset that the Clinton Administration announced that Utah had at least five million acres that qualified as wilderness, Utah's very own Representative James V. Hansen challenges Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt to reinventory the lands. Ironically, but predictably, a few months after the BLM embarked on this Hansen-provoked task, it was stopped by a lawsuit filed by the State, the Utah Association of Counties, and the Utah School Institutional Trust Lands Administration. SUWA filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the lawsuit on behalf of the Interior Department, and presented oral arguments in the case.
1997: Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois introduces the companion bill to America's Redrock Wilderness Act, S. 773.
1998: After two years, involving the work of hundreds of volunteers taking 50,000 photos, the citizens's reinventory is complete. The process disclosed that 99% of the lands within the old inventory are still of wilderness quality (thanks to hard work policing the BLM over the past years), and found much more lands with wilderness characteristics ? brining the total to over nine million acres out of a possible 22 million acres of BLM managed land in Utah.
1999: BLM releases the long-awaited reinventory. The new study was not statewide and comprehensive, but only looked at units within the old 5.7 million citizen's inventory, possible expansions of these units, and a few other areas where BLM land acquisitions created new wilderness opportunities. Even with these limits, the new study concluded that an additional 2.6 million acres have wilderness characteristics. Add the 3.2 million acres of WSAs previously identified, and the BLM is now saying that 5.8 million acres in Utah have wilderness characteristics. This verifies the old 5.7 million acre citizen?s inventory. No wonder the anti-wilderness forces sued to block the BLM's new study.
Hopefully, the BLM will designate the newly identified 2.6 million acres as WSAs, and will complete its study for BLM managed lands state-wide. A comprehensive study will no doubt prove, as the limited recent study did, that the citizen?s were right all along about Utah wilderness. SUWA will continue to fight every intrusion into all areas identified in the comprehensive citizen?s wilderness reinventory.
The BLM offered at least six new oil and gas lease parcels within areas that are part of the new citizens' wilderness proposal at its November 30, 1998 quarterly lease sale, and eighteen at the February 25, 1999 sale. SUWA filed protests against the inclusion of these parcels in these sales, and the BLM State Director, Bill Lamb, denied the first protest and we expect him to deny the second. SUWA will continue to protest every lease offered within the citizens? wilderness proposal, as the issuance of these leases could jeopardize Congress' ability to protect these areas through wilderness designation
Please take a few minutes to write a letter emphasizing that no leases should be offered within the new citizens? wilderness proposal, and that the agency should adopt an interim protection policy for these areas. A little time spent now may save countless hours of writing comments and appealing each APD. Send letters to: Bill Lamb, State Director, BLM, 324 South State Street, Suite 301, P.O. Box 45155, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84145-0155, or fax# (801)539-4013; and to Tom Fry, Acting Director, BLM, 1620 L Street N.W., Washington D.C. 20240, or fax# (202)208-5242.
Recently, the BLM gave Grand County permission to maintain nearly 200 miles of "roads" that were either never constructed and maintained or that had not seen a blade in decades. Many of these "roads" were totally reclaimed with vegetation and others were mere two-track jeep trails. Not any more, as Grand County is aggressively bulldozing every mile. The county is motivated by a fluke formula for distributing state gasoline tax monies adopted by the Utah Legislature in 1997. According to the formula, more maintained road miles equals more dollars. In other words, it allows the County to suck money from the state for busywork projects that benefit no one. Before passing them along to the county, the BLM should have taken a hard look at its maintenance schedule and dropped the "roads" that were unnecessary or causing resource degradation. Now that the county has the full list in its hands, it is refusing to give any up. When will the BLM learn that given an inch, the county will blade a mile?
On January 29, 1999, the Vernal BLM signed the death certificate to over 80,000 acres of the Book Cliffs region. The Resource Development Group (RDG), a partnership of politically charged companies, propose to deliver the lethal blow by drilling 969 wells, constructing 267 miles of new road, and reconstructing 139 miles of "existing" routes (i.e., turn faint jeep trails into heavy duty roads). Many of these wells and roads would be developed within the Lower Bitter Creek unit of the citizens' wilderness proposal, and on lands designated by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources as "critical winter range" for mule deer and elk. The BLM supported its "finding of no significant impact (FONSI)" with such ludicrous mitigation measures as restricting development in the critical winter range to four wells per square mile rather than the eight allowed elsewhere, and requiring the companies to paint the equipment juniper green if it falls within a five-mile radius of Goblin City View Area. Big deal.
By no means do these mickey-mouse conditions of approval mitigate the impact below the threshold level of "significant." The agency should have prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) to take a more comprehensive look at this proposal and the cumulative impacts of past and future developments that could forever change the primitive character of the Book Cliffs. SUWA will appeal this decision.
Not willing to be trumped by private land developers screwing up the Colorado River corridor, the BLM recently bulldozed a two-lane road, scraped out parking areas and campsites, and constructed toilet facilities approximately 500 feet inside the boundary of the Porcupine Rim proposed wilderness unit. The agency provided no notice to the public and neglected to prepare a site specific environmental assessment ? all in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
An article recently appeared in a San Juan County rag titled "Cultural war moving to local grade schools some parents claim." Reportedly, a group of Blanding, Utah mothers expressed concern that environmental extremism and secular humanism are being taught at grade schools in the County. One mother stated that she had witnessed such extreme environmentalism as kids being told to actually hug a tree to help them become friends with the tree. Another mother was worried that ideals about globalism and socialism were infiltrating the schools. Some parents have chosen to keep their children home from school on days when these radical field trips are conducted.
The Cedar City BLM has recently authorized the installation of two wildlife water catchments (guzzlers) to be located within the North Wah Wah H.R. 1500 proposed wilderness area. This area has recently been re-inventoried by the BLM itself, and found to possess wilderness characteristics. As such, the BLM should manage the area so that its wilderness values are not impaired - including no permanent structures or surface disturbing activities - until Congress acts. The BLM approved numerous guzzlers in 1998 for the West Desert, primarily to improve chukar partridge habitat (a non-native game bird). The recent decision authorizing these two guzzlers, however, failed to adequately assess the wilderness characteristics of the area and other alternatives. SUWA is preparing an appeal.
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Draft Plan for the GSENM was issued for public comment in November, with the public comment period extended to March 15. (BLM agreed to an extra 30 days after Kane and Garfield counties whined that they needed extra time to draft comments, even though the counties had the same amount of time as the rest of the nation, and had received several hundred thousand dollars of federal money to help them review and determine the effects of the Monument on their particular situations).
To its credit, BLM's Preferred Alternative closes many miles of unnecessary trails and routes. However, it allows ATVs on many routes within the Monument. Past experience has proven that when ATVs are allowed on designated routes, the cross-country restrictions are disregarded and ATVs riders go off trail into restricted areas. The BLM has not been able to enforce its rules and restrictions or to effectively manage ATV use (example: Moquith Mountain WSA), and there is no reason to believe that the situation will be different in the Monument.
The Presidential Proclamation that established the Monument clearly states that the resources of the Monument are to be protected, not managed for the convenience of visitors and users, and not managed in a way that ?strikes a balance? of all interests. Protection must be the overriding objective of the final management plan.
The BLM approved Conoco's Application for Permit to Drill (APD) an exploratory well on Conoco's Muley Creek federal lease, and Conoco began drilling activities the first week of February, just two weeks before the 10-year federal lease would have expired. The well is located in the Long Canyon unit of HR 1500, near the Burr Trail, about 13 miles north of Bullfrog. The panoramic view from the drill site includes the Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef National Park, Navajo Mountain, the Henry Mountains, the reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam and countless canyons, mesas and ridges in between.
The BLM acknowledges in its Environmental Assessment that the lease is situated in a very remote area near Capitol Reef National Park and other proposed wilderness areas, and that, indeed, the area "offers opportunities for solitude." However, the agency inconceivably decided that this industrial activity, which includes dozens of semi-truck trips along the lower Burr Trail, drastic increases in noise levels, gas flaring, unrestricted night lighting, and around-the-clock drilling activities "will not result in significant adverse impacts to the human environment or cause unnecessary or undue degradation of the environment."
This new drilling permit smells suspiciously like another one of Conoco's thinly veiled attempts to compel the BLM to buy out Conoco's numerous and highly speculative leases in southern Utah.
The Dixie National Forest issued its decision in the South Spruce Ecosystem Rehabilitation Project (SSERP) in which it decided to leave the forest standing in the Hancock Peak roadless area for the time being. The Dixie had originally proposed to cut 75 million board feet of wood, 25 million of which was slated to come out of the 7,200 acre Hancock Peak roadless and undeveloped area. The roadless area was threatened with chainsaws, roads, and a host of environmental impacts, all in the name of "economic recovery of forest products."
The SSERP proposal was all the more offensive as it was proposed in the face of a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office that disclosed that the Dixie had been losing approximately $2 million annually for the past three years on its timber sales program -- the Forest's main revenue program.
The Forest Service reserved the right to issue a second SSERP decision on the roadless portions of the project at a later date. SUWA is continuing to advocate for critical preservation of the Hancock Roadless area, since less than 30% of the Dixie remains free of roads and other developments.
The Dixie National Forest was on the right track in its recent proposal to close 210 miles (out of 312 miles) of old logging roads that are not being maintained, serve no purpose, and are degrading wildlife habitat and water quality in the Strawberry Creek and Swains Creek areas, by Duck Creek Village. Although the road closure proposal was solidly based on the need to protect resources, the Dixie has bowed to local pressure from ATV users, and has decided to delay the project.
The road density in the area is 4.9 miles of road per square mile of land, nearly double the Dixie Forest Plan's mandate that road densities should not exceed 2 miles per square mile of wildlife habitat. Big game habitat is being degraded due to the high number of routes, and excessive amounts of fine sediment are entering streams as runoff from roads choking spawning gravels and making it difficult for eggs to survive and hatch.
The Dixie is responsible for managing the forest lands to protect the resources, not for the convenience and self-interests of vocal ATV riders, who are currently allowed to use a disproportionate 75% of the 4600 miles of roads and trails within the forest.