The Washington County Land Bill is Back, and it Still Needs Improvement

 

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett has once again introduced a Washington County lands bill, S.2834. While the bill has added acreage to be designated as wilderness, there are still major problems related to the sale of public lands. The Utah Chapter passed a resolution opposing the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2008, S.2384 as it is now written. Please contact Rep. Jim Matheson and Sen. Bob Bennett to express your opposition to the bill as introduced.

 

Here are the key problems with the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2008, S.2834:

 

1. The bill requires the sale of as much as 9,300 acres of public land in Washington County and directs some of the revenue to the county. Ten percent of the revenue would go to Washington County for, among other things, water delivery systems, such as the controversial Lake Powell Pipeline. One estimate puts the revenue for the county as high as $120 million. This is a bad precedent. Local governments should not be encouraged to look to the sale of public lands as a means to augment their budgets. Public lands throughout the West could find themselves on the auction block.
2. S.2834 also gives nearly 1000 acres in rights-of-way to Washington County for two reservoir sites.
3. S.2834 excludes too many important wildlands from wilderness designation. Through years of painstaking survey and research, the Utah Wilderness Coalition has identified 300,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in Washington County that should be protected as wilderness. These include beautiful Colorado Plateau wildlands near Zion National Park as well as Utah’s part of the wild Mojave Desert. But S.2834 would protect only 140,000 acres of these deserving lands.
4. The bill directs the Secretary of the Interior to study alternatives for locating the Northern Corridor freeway. In the past local officials have identified a preferred route through the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stated that building this freeway in the reserve would harm the desert tortoise population which the reserve was created to protect. In fact, the reserve was established with the understanding that 350,000 acres of tortoise habitat outside the reserve could be developed. The Northern Corridor proposal is a sign that local officials and development interests want to renege on that deal.
5. The bill would designate the High Desert ORV Trail, some of which could run through proposed wilderness areas.
6. S.2834 not only releases 5,000 acres of wilderness study area from protection, but also contains language that could prohibit future wilderness study of other deserving wildlands that would not be protected by the bill.
7. The bill expressly denies a water right for wilderness and permits other non-conforming activities.

 

Rep. Jim Matheson – (202) 225-3011. Please ask Rep. Matheson:

• To commit to improving the provisions cited above.
• To hold listening sessions in Washington County prior to the introduction of a House version of S.2834.

Sen. Bennett – (202) 224-5444. Please ask Sen. Bennett to work with the Sierra Club to improve his bill per the points cited above.

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