Utah protesters prepare for new face-off with feds

In this 2010 photo, Bureau of Land Management staffer Tom Heinlein puts a "No vehicles" placard at the trail head of Recapture Canyon near Blanding, Utah. (Leah Hogsten / Salt Lake Tribune)

by John M. Glionna
Los Angeles Times

This eye-blink of a town in the state’s scenic southeastern corner bills itself as the “Gateway to Adventure.” But this weekend it promises to be more like a launchpad for civil unrest.

A band of angry citizens plans to ride all-terrain vehicles onto closed-off, federally managed public land Saturday in protest against the federal Bureau of Land Management, which many say has unfairly closed off a prized area, cheating residents of outdoor recreation.

The ride, organized by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, is a gambit to assert county sovereignty over Recapture Canyon, known for its archaeological ruins, that BLM officials say has been jeopardized from overuse. The canyon was closed to motor vehicles in 2007, the agency said, after two men forged an illegal seven-mile trail. Hikers and those on horseback are still allowed there.

Lyman and his supporters want the BLM to act more quickly on a years-old request for a public right-of-way through the area. “You can’t just arbitrarily shut down a road in San Juan County,” he said. “If you can do that and get away with it, what else can you do?”

The revolt has received national attention, coming at the heels of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s successful standoff last month against the BLM that suggests a rising battle across the West over states’ rights on federally managed public lands. Tensions rose in Utah this week after two men pointed a gun at a BLM employee on a highway.

The Blanding protest is being spearheaded not by any citizen rancher like Bundy, but rather by an outspoken local public official — a sign of the growing frustrations in a rural county composed of nearly 90% public lands managed by the BLM. As a result, locals say, they have long been shut out of land-use decisions that that intimately affect their lives and economy.

Many say the Nevada incident and the Blanding protest are both reminiscent of the 1970s Sagebrush Rebellion, in which communities across the West decried what they called the overreaching power of the federal government.

In recent years, conservative lawmakers in several Western states have renewed the call for greater state and local control of federal lands — many describing the federal government as an occupying force.

Lyman says he has a right to represent his local constituency against outside agitators, including the federal government. And he enjoys widespread support here.

“I think more than 80% of the people in this town stand behind his cause,” said 33-year resident Jill Bayles, a retired nurse who said she misses driving her ATV in Recapture Canyon.

“I won’t be at the protest because my back hurts, but if it didn’t, I’d be out there on my ATV, leading the charge,” she said. “People here are just tired of the Park Service and BLM telling us what to do.”

Environmental groups have spoken out in support of the BLM, saying that fragile Recapture Canyon must be protected. In a statement issued Friday, the Wilderness Society called for the area “to remain closed to motorized use so its valuable natural, cultural and historic resources can be protected.”

This week, BLM officials notified Lyman that any illegal foray in the area would bring consequences such as citations and arrest. “I strongly urge you to cancel the proposed ride in the closed portion of the canyon,” Lance Porter, the agency’s local district manager in Moab, wrote in a hand-delivered letter. “BLM will seek all appropriate civil and criminal penalties against anyone who participates in the proposed ride.”

Lyman quickly responded with a letter saying that the ride was still on and that local resentment of federal officials here had not cooled: “I do not consider my protest, or the protest of those who choose to participate on May 10, to be in violation of the law.”

Many across the West are watching to see what happens in Recapture Canyon.

Earlier this week, two men wearing hooded sweatshirts brandished a handgun at a BLM worker driving an agency vehicle, holding up a sign that read, “You need to die.” BLM workers have since been advised to take precautions such as not wearing their uniforms, and the agency issued a statement saying threats against its employees “will not be tolerated.”

The protest comes just a month after Bundy successfully took on the BLM over his claims to graze hundreds of cattle on public land without paying fees. In that incident, the federal government backed down after raiding the rancher’s land — pushed back by the arrival of hundreds of so-called citizen soldiers, many armed with semiautomatic weapons.

Officials said the retreat came after they feared bloodshed.

Lyman’s protest was planned long before the Bundy incident, but now militia who rallied to help Bundy are expected to converge in this town of 3,500 residents settled a century ago by Mormon missionaries.

In recent days, many militia members have left camps near the Bundy ranch 80 miles north of Las Vegas to make the nearly 500-mile drive to Blanding.

“There aren’t as many men here as there were a few days ago,” Bundy’s wife, Carol, told The Times. “Many of them have gone up to Utah.’

Asked whether they would be armed, she said, “They’re militia! Of course they’re carrying their weapons.”

On Friday, Stephen Dean, a 46-year-old Salt Lake City artist and self-proclaimed militiaman, sat in his van at a park where a protest rally was scheduled for the evening. “I drove up from the Bundy ranch today to show my support for local people here for access to public lands,” he said, an American flag flying from his radio antenna.

He said he was a member of a Utah militia group known as the People’s United Mobile Armed Services. “Cliven told me there was another cause up here,” he said. “I’m from Utah, so this is important to me.”

On the militia group’s Facebook page, Dean posted a message that said, “This could be the next big story as the ATV loving locals team with Militia groups to recapture Recapture Canyon.”

He added: “The pro-ATV dude at the grocery store said ‘it could get ugly really fast.’” He closed the post with, “Arm yourselves!”

Later that night, he set up a microphone and tried to solicit funds from 75 people who had arrived to hear Lyman speak.

When Lyman arrived, he was perturbed that his rally had been commandeered by a militia he didn’t invite. “This is my crowd,” he told a reporter. “But I don’t just want to get up and push them out of the way.”

Later, he walked up to the microphone and asked Dean: “Who are you, anyway?”

He then told the crowd that he and other protesters planned to ride their ATVs onto federal land in the morning. “This isn’t political; this isn’t economic. This is just who we are,” he said to applause.

“If you make a rule that I have to lick your boots, I’m just not going to do that,” he added. “I’ve tried to work with these federal people and have spent a lot of time on my knees. But sometimes you just have to stand up for yourselves.”

Meanwhile, officials have urged calm.

“I hope we can continue to use civil dialogue in matter because nobody wants to see people get hurt,” Kathleen Clarke, who was a BLM director from 2001 to 2006, told The Times. “A big show of force and a showdown at the OK Corral is just not helpful. We don’t want that kind of standoff.”

She added: “it’s never a good thing when you have one group of armed Americans lined up against another.”

Debate flares over providing wildlife artificial water sources

Cliff McDonald (standing) helps a Water for Wildlife volunteer patch cracks in a cement "drinker" at the Mojave National Preserve. (Katherine Davis)

Katherine Davis
89.3 KPPC
Southern California Public Radio

Listen to Podcast [4 min 16 sec]

Mojave National Preserve — A stretch of protected desert northeast of Los Angeles — is currently reviewing its water management plan. One question officials are considering is whether to continue providing artificial water sources for desert wildlife.

As part of the Works Progress Administration, hundreds of concrete "drinkers" were installed across the desert in the 1940s. They're giant concrete saucers that funnel rainwater into cisterns that animals drink from. But after half a century in the desert sun, most of the drinkers are cracked and needing repairs.

A group called Water for Wildlife has voluntarily repaired these drinkers for years. Now debate is underway on whether these drinkers should be removed.

In nine years, Water for Wildlife's Cliff McDonald and hundreds of volunteers have repaired about 100 of these drinkers. They come out for one weekend a month during winter and spring. They camp overnight, and little by little, they’re making progress.

“[One] particular drinker had not been working, so we repaired it, and within 60 days there was a tortoise coming out of it where he had just gotten a drink,” McDonald said. “That same tortoise was estimated to be about 60 years old, so he could have watched the guys build it 60 or 70 years ago.”

But even if quail, tortoises, and other desert animals like having easy spots to find water, not everyone agrees that these drinkers should be maintained.

“If you’re trying to manage just one part of an [ecosystem], then you can upset the functioning of the rest of the system,” said Terry Weiner, conservation coordinator with the Desert Protective Council. “The problem [with artificial water] is that it can become what we call an ‘attractive nuisance,’ and animals that would not be drawn to that area before will perhaps go there.”

Like many other environmental groups, Weiner’s organization worries that the drinkers interfere with a desert ecosystem that evolved to survive with limited water.

That’s exactly the argument the Mojave National Preserve is weighing now as it develops a new water management plan.

“From the scientific standpoint there’s really not a lot of evidence that artificial water is all that beneficial," said Neal Darby, a wildlife biologist with the preserve. "We know animals use it, but we can’t say that if they didn’t have it they would all die. And that’s where the problem is, it’s a very difficult hypothesis to test,” he said.

It’s difficult to test because one possible outcome of taking away the drinkers is that desert wildlife could start to die off.

Humans have been in California’s deserts for centuries, and in many cases, settlers created artificial water sources for their cattle or crops, which wildlife eventually began to rely on too. Humans have also used up some natural water sources throughout the desert. That’s why McDonald and his volunteers say maintaining artificial water is important.

But some environmentalists call McDonald’s motivations into question.

“In too many cases we find the people who are really enthusiastic about establishing guzzlers throughout the desert are people who want to make sure the population of animals is such that the can keep hunting them,” said Weiner. “We’re not opposed to appropriate hunting, but having artificial water sources to artificially pump up the population of [animals] is not a good idea.”

Like many of his volunteers, McDonald does hunt. But, he says of the hundreds of species in the desert that use the drinkers, only a handful are of any interest to hunters. And, he says, keeping all of those wildlife populations thriving should be of interest to everyone.

“If I’m the general public and I do not hunt and I want to come out here to camp, I’d want to see flickers and warblers and blue jays, and they drink this water,” McDonald said.

McDonald also said that hunting licenses help pay for a lot of other environmental projects. Darby agrees.

“There’s not a lot of funding available,” said Darby. “These sportsman’s groups really step up to the plate and help [the Mojave National Preserve] get things done.”

What Darby, McDonald, and other environmental groups can all agree on, is that California’s desert ecosystems should be protected. The question is, whether giving wildlife unnatural sources of water really helps.

It’s a major debate, but it’s not enough slow down McDonald and his volunteers.

“My dad and I hunted together, we fished together and we saw a lot of wildlife. A lot of that wildlife was drinking out of a stream or drinking out of one of these artificial drinkers and I would like the future generations to be able to see that,” McDonald said.

But in drought years like this one, if wildlife can’t get water, McDonald isn’t sure that will be possible.

Pioneertown zone may go commercial

By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star



Riders reenact a Pony Express mail delivery in Pioneertown every year to lead up to Grubstake Days.


PIONEERTOWN — The county government is moving to change this community’s downtown zoning from residential to commercial to allow more businesses to locate in this former Western-movie backdrop.

Dave Dawson, a senior planner with San Bernardino County’s Land Use Services Department, said county staff is working on the process to change the land designation from special development residential to special development commercial.

It will affect 30 acres bounded by Rawhide Road on the north, Curtis Road on the east, Tom Mix Road on the west and Pioneertown Road on the south.

The zoning change would have to be approved by the planning commission in a meeting that probably won’t happen until February 2009 or later, Dawson said.

The zoning change was requested last year while the county was updating its General Plan, he said.

“If there’s ever to be a viable economic entity again out there, we have to have some commercial designation,” Dawson declared.

The rezoning is not being considered for a specific business, said Dawson, who emphasized, “There is no project on the board at this time.”

Construction of single-family houses would not be allowed in the new zone; the only type of housing allowed would be multi-family or a combination of home and business. Dawson offered an example of a dentist who kept an office in the front of his building and lived in back.

Existing single-family homes would be allowed to stand if the zoning changes, he said, as long as the buildings were properly permitted.

Dawson expressed hope that new businesses would help Pioneertown in the long run.

“Eventually, the town will hopefully come around with more economic vitality,” he said.

According to Dawson, businesses applying for permits would have to take into consideration the community’s Old West architecture and nature.

Pioneertown resident Guy Hann, whose house on Mane Street would fall inside the new zone, drafted a petition asking people to oppose the project.

“I have a problem with some of the types of businesses that they would allow,” Hann said when reached at his office Friday afternoon. “The types of businesses they would allow under special permitting are just ridiculous. There are alcoholics’ halfway houses and homeless shelters and those sorts of things, which wouldn’t be copacetic with the character of Pioneertown at all.”

Hann also pointed out new horse stables and livestock corrals would not be allowed in the commercial zone. “That’s what this little community is about,” he declared.

Dawson said existing horseback riding facilities and homes with corrals would be allowed to remain in the new zone.

Hann’s main fear is how much he doesn’t know about the plan. “Their agenda is unknown,” he said. “They’re not willing to disclose who has requested this revision or who initiated it. It’s their contention it’s just the County of San Bernardino that initiated it.”

“I’m scared of the unknown,” he concluded. “I just don’t know what kind of repercussions this would have on my home.”

Public hearings before the planning commission and board of supervisors will be scheduled at a later date.

1.1 million Utah acres of public land closed to off-highway vehicles

By SENTINEL STAFF
Daily Sentinel

The Bureau of Land Management on Friday approved five new Resource Management Plans for field offices in Utah that will close almost 1.1 million acres, or 13 percent, of public lands to off-highway vehicle travel in these areas, according to a news release.

Off-highway vehicle travel on designated roads is still allowed on 7.6 million acres, or 88 percent of public lands in the five field office areas of Moab, Kanab, Price, Richfield and Vernal.

The new plans replace 25-year-old plans and better address “the need for improved recreation opportunities, better management of cross-country travel to protect natural resources, the use of best management practices to mitigate the impacts of energy development activities and additional safeguards for the protection of environmentally sensitive areas,” the BLM’s release said.

The BLM is managing 361,000 acres of the 2.2 million acres of land officials considered to be eligible for wilderness characteristics in the five plans.

According to the new plans, 53 percent of the acreage open to oil and gas leasing will be subject to stricter environmental controls, and 18 percent of the lands within the planning areas are unavailable for any energy leasing.

“BLM has committed in each of the plans to find innovative ways to minimize the footprint on public lands. This is done through best management practices, including directional drilling, well placement and sound muffling,” the release said.

Many of the plans were started in 2001 and were approved after protests were reviewed by its director and the state of Utah.

Pro: BLM Utah Resource Management Plans

Opinion



by Selma Sierra
BLM Utah State Director




Selma Sierra, BLM Utah State Director


The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) mandates that BLM manage public lands for multiple use such as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, energy exploration and production, conservation, and timber production. Additionally, the Act establishes that BLM sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. In making decisions about land use, FLPMA requires the BLM develop Resource Management Plans (RMP) and update the RMPs when circumstances change and significant new information becomes available. These important land use decision documents require public input and participation.

Here in Utah, the BLM has nearly completed the task of revising six RMPs for the Moab, Richfield, Price, Vernal, Monticello, and Kanab planning areas. It has been nearly eight years since we began the planning process, which has been one of the longest and most intensive land use planning efforts the BLM Utah has undertaken. Revisions are necessary since some of the planning areas have not updated their RMPs in 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of public comments were considered during the planning process; dozens of meetings with our partners at the county and state levels have taken place to bring us to this point.

The BLM will continue releasing Proposed RMPs and Final Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for each of the six planning areas in the coming weeks. The BLM has balanced multiple interests and priorities, creating a management framework to guide public land decisions.

Today the public debate is dominated by the need to identify opportunities for domestic energy supplies. Domestic sources of oil, natural gas and renewable energy play an important role in our nation’s security and stability. While the proposed plans envision maintaining areas open to oil and gas leasing, they would also institute protective measures during development, such as timing limitations, best management practices and advanced technology to minimize the footprint of developing those important resources.

In addition to proposing to accommodate our pressing national needs for energy development the plans also propose protecting public lands within the six planning areas where there are sensitive natural resources, making these lands off limits to surface disturbing activities, unavailable to oil and gas leasing or other restrictions. This type of protection would extend to almost one million acres of public land, in addition to nearly two million acres of existing wilderness study areas.

Regarding outdoor recreation, the plans consider opportunities for primitive recreation and managing certain lands in Utah to maintain, protect and enhance public land natural areas. In addition, BLM Utah proposes focusing off-highway vehicle (OHV) use to designated roads and trails. Social changes, chiefly the growing popularity of OHVs and population growth, have created a need to more closely manage this type of recreation.

BLM recognizes the value public lands hold for local communities and their economies. We have maintained a focus on supporting communities, their growth and diverse needs while maintaining national priorities and objectives, all within the context of BLM’s multiple use mandate. As State Director, I will continue to honor the integral role that the BLM and the land we manage plays in the livelihood and economies of local communities as we move forward to complete these vital planning proposals.