Emery County Land Use meeting

[Bear T]

Here is the email I received from Ray Petersen about the meeting, sounds like he is opposed to anything that SUWA is asking for.



Thanks for the email Mike,

Let me clarify something. SUWA did not request this meeting. The Emery County Public Lands Council is holding public meetings such as this one to determine if there is wisdom in pursueing a comprehensive land use plan, including possible legislation that would bring an end to the wilderness designation debate in Emery County. SUWA may or may not be represented at the meeting. But they are members of the public and have the same right that you do to express thier opinions. The Council has held seven meetings to date on the following issues: wildlife, water rights, utility corridors, travel/transportation, mineral exploration/mining, livestock grazing and heritage site resources.

Emery County does not support SUWA's proposals nor do SUWA's bidding.
They have been present at some of the Lands Council meetings. Thier proposal to designate 1.4 million acres of wilderness in Emery County would be disastrous. These meetings are intended to inform the public concerning of SUWA's wilderness plan and develop a comprehensive plan to eliminate the threat of the SUWA proposal. There will be more meetings in the future.

Thanks again for your concerns,

Ray

 

[anderson750]

I just got back from the meeting and overall I feel that it went very well. There were approximately 80 people in attendance. People in attendance were from the Wasatch front, Utah County, Gunnison, Carbon County, Emery County and a couple other places I cannot recall right now.

My disclaimer.......What I am about write is not necessarily my opinion, but a summary of what was said.

As things stand right now the Emery County public lands council is taking input from citizens on whether they should take a pro-active approach to the wilderness issue that Emery County is facing. If the ARRWA were to pass it would designate 1.4 million acres of Wilderness in Utah. A huge portion of that being in Emery County. So right now they are exploring the possibility of putting together legislation like Washington County did.

What would be good about that? Well a couple of thoughts as to why are to get some finality to the issue. Also, the current WSA's are not going to go away and they are more restrictive than an actual wilderness designation. So by writing legislation to turn the current WSA's into wilderness, they can also write into the legislation stipulations of use. What I mean by that is the possiblity to open up roads that are currently closed in the WSA that should be open under RS2477.

On the topic of finality, wording in the Washington County bill on Release of WSA's would be used. It reads:

RELEASE OF WILDERNESS STUDY AREAS​

(1)FINDING-Congress finds that, for the purposes of section 603 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1782), the public land in the County administered by the Bureau of Land Management has be adequately studied for wilderness designation.

(2)RELEASE-Any public land described in paragraph (1) that is not designated as wilderness by subsection (a)(1)-
(A)is no longer subject to section 603(c) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1782(c)); and
(B)shall be managed in accordance with applicable law and the land management plans adopted under section 202 of that Act (43 U.S.C. 1712)​

Would this keep SUWA from trying to get more? No, they will always want more. But will this stop the ARRWA? Maybe. If legislation is passed that takes care of the "wilderness issue" in Emery County, Congress may take the stance that they have dealt with that issue. It is to early to tell if this is the case with the Washington County legislation.​

There were two very distinct opinions present. Those that do not want any wilderness designation and those that want to pursue legislation that would designate some wilderness. It was probably split down the middle. For those that do not want any wilderness designation, there were several opinions on how to fight it. It stemmed from the Constitutionality of what the government is doing to ADA. This approach would take litigation and to be successful, get a judge that did not legislate from the bench. There has not been a good record for this in the past.​

On the opinions of pursuing legislation, Emery County needs to pursue areas that are currently in the WSA which do not have characteristics of wilderness. On of the major things in that argument is disturbance from man. If you have been to the San Rafael, you know how much disturbance from mining is present in the WSA's. Also, they need to pursue not net loss of roads and trails. If there is loss due to wilderness designation, then we need something in return. Things that should not be closed right now. A couple mentioned were Junes bottom, Muddy Creek. Some Wilderness is acceptable but not if it closes roads, harms livestock operators, sportsmen or the ability to extract valuable resources. There also needs to be more opportunity for dispersed camping.​

Lastly, people need to keep sending their comments to Ray. He made reference several times during the meeting to the amount of emails he has received this week.​

 

[Don B]

Thanks Paul, great report.

The 1.4 million acres of wilderness under ARRWA is just in Emery County. For the entire state of Utah it is something like 9.3 million acres.

I'm of the opinion that it would be better to take a proactive stance on wilderness and come up with an alternative to SUWA's. I know one of the reasons that the Washington County Commissioners supported that land use bill was that they believe that having the wilderness areas designated in the land use bill would protect them from the ARRWA.

Honestly, I don't think trying to stop wilderness designation through Constitutional arguments or ADA will work.

 

[anderson750]

I support a pro-active approach also. My big concern is that we try to limit the re-writing of the bill like what happened to Washington County after it was sent to DC. Regardless of what we do, there IS going to be Wilderness designation, we just need to be part of directing what is and what is not.

 

[SAMI]

Ray's email reply

Thanks for the email Jason.

Emery County recognizes the benefit of working with user groups you
have mentioned and values the stewardship ethic reflected in them.
Mike Swenson and I communicate often and our local clubs are prob ably
the biggest advocates of responsible use.

As for SUWA, they are members of the public also, and as such, have
access to these open meetings as well as the Emery County Public Lands
Council meetins held monthly. They submit their input, the council
considers it along with all other input.

These meetings (this is the eighth) have been intended to determine if
there is public support for legislation to finalize the wilderness
designation debate in Emery County, while preserving and protecting
current resource use, including the activities you have mentioned.
Should the council choose to proceed, we will create a webpage which
will make information about the process available, inluding future
meeting dates.

Don't hesitate to inquire further,

Ray Petersen

 

[anderson750]

Ray says he has received about 15 emails from people......most of which has been from members of U4WDA. Good Job, but lets get more in his inbox.

 

[e28bimmer]

Nice!

So I just heard back about the great support that came in against the WSAs from outside. All is noted and he has a packet on the way from GRE backed by our 1692 members against any sort of wilderness designation. I just wanted to say thanks, and this kind of effort is good, it shows the opposition isnt just from a few inside the county, that it comes from all over the state.

 

[scoutabout]

Media coverage of the meeting:

http://www.ecprogress.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=8165