When President Clinton created the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah two years
ago, environmentalists broke out the champagne, while many locals
moped (HCN, 4/14/97). A proposed management plan for the monument
has the two groups in each others’
shoes.
“I thought the people
doing the plan really did a good job,” Kane County Commissioner Joe
Judd says of the 15-member planning team assembled by the Bureau of
Land Management. His county plans to build a new monument
headquarters and two interpretive centers to pull in agency and
tourist dollars. “We’re trying to make lemonade out of the lemon
we’ve been given,” he says.
Tom Price of the
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance isn’t so pleased. “It’s got some
good stuff in it,” he concedes. “This is not your father’s BLM.”
But he says the plan doesn’t include enough wilderness and is too
lenient with ranchers. The agency’s plans to build trailheads and
other visitor facilities along the remote Burr Trail are comparable
to “Lewis and Clark hitting a 7-11,” he adds.
The proposal, released in November in the form of a draft
environmental impact statement, offers five management options for
the 1.9 million-acre monument. All would protect most of the
monument as “primitive” areas similar to wilderness, and confine
vehicles to existing roads. New facilities are targeted for
surrounding towns. Says monument planner Jerry Meredith, “You won’t
find campgrounds or visitors centers in the monument.”
The BLM is taking its options to the public at
13 meetings this winter in Utah, Colorado, California, Arizona, New
Mexico and Washington, D.C. The public comment period ends Feb. 12,
and the agency hopes to have a final management plan in place by
September 1999.
You can find the draft
environmental impact statement on the web at
www.ut.blm.gov/monument, order a copy on paper or CD ROM, or send
comments to: Pete Wilkins – Team Leader, Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument, 337 South Main St., Suite 010, Cedar City, UT
84720 (435/865-5100).
” Greg
Hanscom
Crystal Mountain
plans to
grow
Ski resort collector Boyne USA is laying
the groundwork for a massive makeover of Crystal Mountain in
Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Boyne, also the owner of Big Sky in
Montana (HCN, 3/31/97), plans to pump $40 million into the resort
to keep Seattle-area skiers from fleeing the state to visit other
resorts. Improvements include 10 new lifts, expanded parking, and
upgraded restaurant facilities. Crystal Mountain representative
Kelly Graham envisions a “world-class experience for day-use
skiers.” A local group called the Crystal Conservation Coalition
worries about the “outrageous scale” of the development plans. They
think impacts on water quality, wildlife habitat, backcountry
opportunities, and nearby Mount Rainier National Park need to be
carefully studied.
The scoping period for the
environmental impact statement that must accompany the development
is under way. Send written comments before Jan. 15, 1999, to Forest
Supervisor, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, 21905 64th Avenue
West, Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043-2278. For more information
contact Larry Donovan with the Forest Service at 425/744-3403 or
l.donovan/r6pnw_mbs@fs.fed.us.
“
Stanley Yung
Adopt a
stream
Driving the West’s highways, you can’t
help but notice the blue “Adopt a Highway” signs announcing who’s
agreed to pick up trash beside the road. Now, the Colorado Water
Conservation Board has started a similar program to help monitor
stream flows. The agency is responsible for maintaining adequate
water levels in 1,300 of the most fish-friendly streams in the
state, but staff can’t keep an eye on every stream. So in 1996,
they contacted Colorado Trout Unlimited to help put together a
volunteer stream-monitoring effort. Thanks to a grant from Great
Colorado Outdoors and matching funds from Trout Unlimited and the
Silver Trout Foundation, the pilot program “Adopt an Instream Flow”
is under way. Volunteers act as the “eyes and ears’ of the agency –
checking gauges and alerting agency staff when flows are low.
Program director Jeff Baessler says he’s looking for energetic
groups to volunteer for this new initiative.
If
your group is interested in adopting a stream, contact Jeff
Baessler at 303/866-3441 or
jeffery.baessler@state.co.us.
“
Stanley Yung
Squawking
gets
squawfish renamed
The
squawfish is about to be rechristened. The Names of Fishes
Committee of the American Fisheries Society has recommended that
all squawfish be renamed pikeminnows. Although the committee is
reluctant to change common names for fear of causing confusion, it
made an exception this time because “names should not violate the
tenets of good taste.” The committee determined that the squawfish
probably was never intended to be a derogatory reference to Native
American women; in fact, it’s more likely that the term evolved
from a mispronunciation of squawkfish – the sound the fish makes
when it’s taken out of the river. Regardless of its origins, many
Native American groups like the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission find it offensive today, calling the decision “long
overdue.”
To get a fish renamed, write Joseph
S. Nelson, Chair of the Names of Fish Committee, Department of
Biology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9.
*Stanley Yung
The last
decade has been a good one for the West’s land trusts. A census
conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Land Trust Alliance reveals
that the number of land trusts that serve the Rocky Mountain states
has risen from 20 to 52, and the Southwest shows similar growth.
Nationwide, these private nonprofits, whose primary purpose is to
conserve land, have protected a total of 4.7 million acres through
conservation easements and land purchases.
For
more information, contact Land Trust Alliance, 1319 F St. N.W.,
Ste. 501, Washington, D.C., 20004-1106,
(202/638-4725).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Grand Staircase-Escalante in the spotlight.
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