Utah legislators showing a more cooperative spirit with land use
Politicians, environmental groups, ranchers, developers and other interest groups are beginning to realize the old ways of hard-nosed face-offs over land use decisions may be a thing of the past. With so many conflicting demands and impacts placed on public lands, wildlife, water and air quality, various stakeholders in the West are opting for more consensus building and fewer costly court battles.
According to the Census Bureau, Utah’s Washington County is among the top five fastest growing counties in America. Population growth in and around St. George is putting more and more pressure on surrounding public lands and natural resources.
Sensitive and endangered species issues, such as desert tortoise habitat protection, has been the only leverage environmental groups possessed to confront uncontrolled development in Washington County.
Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson are introducing legislation intended to bridge the gap between opposing interests and develop a public land-use policy for the county that balances environmental integrity with the hard realities of surging growth.
Although more details will come out later in the spring, the plan seeks more than 220,000 acres of new wilderness designation for land parcels within and surrounding Zion National Park and adds some current BLM land to the park.
According to a Washington County journalist Brian Passey, writing for The Spectrum, some of these areas include land near Canaan Mountain, Blackridge area near Toquerville, Cottonwood Canyon near St. George and Red Mountain area near Ivins.
The bill proposes assigning 170 miles of the Virgin River as a national wild and scenic river, allowing for added habitat and watershed protection along the riparian streamside corridor.
The proposal also seeks to change the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, established as a refuge for the desert tortoise, to the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, allowing for more comprehensive and permanent protection for the tortoise.
The bill outlines a public land sale of parcels deemed less environmentally significant, using sale revenues to fund schools, county fire and flood control, water projects, conservation projects including sensitive species preservation and further improvements in national forests and Zion National Park.
Accounting for future water needs associated with growth, the bill “preserves critical utility, transportation and water corridors” writes Passey. “And it creates the High Desert OHV Trail System.”
Hopefully the bill is a prelude to a more cooperative atmosphere in Utah land-use conflicts. To those hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts interested in healthy public lands, the pros and cons of generous wilderness designations is less important than you think.
Many legislators like Bennett are adopting a political strategy of land trades; giving interest groups what they want in the picturesque heart-pulling destinations, while planning sweeping oil and gas development across millions of overlooked BLM acres throughout the West.
To those believing high-desert environmental battles are overblown, don’t be fooled. State and federal politicians and bureaucrats are signing away rights to energy companies, accelerating coal-bed methane, tar sands and oil shale prospecting and extraction on our public lands. They are nasty, polluting, land-scaring measures with no long-term benefit to Utah; they only leave us with ripped-up rangeland, polluted water, threatened fisheries, less big game winter range and huge threats to ranchers and their future sustainability.
Hunters, fishermen and outdoor advocates of all types should be pleased with the direction of Bennett and Matheson’s bill, but they should also come to realize a common interest in all those thousands of acres now on the verge of petroleum-propelled destruction.
Send comments and questions to jmgoodell@cc.usu.edu.