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Show V The Wilderness Society 52 3 Judge Bldg. 8 E. Broadway Salt Lake City, Utah 84-111 Friends: My concern for writing you and my ability to find place and opportunity for this havenft coincided since December 20 when I left Salt Lake City to spend Christmas with my family in Denver. I have been more or less sleeping out of a sleeping bag ever since. Now I have returned to Salt Lake City for two meetings and for preparation for helping to raise $20,000 for a one year project to help protect outstanding recreation and wildlife resources in northeast Utah. I'll be Project Director. For those of you I haven't written, I'll give you some background on my activities in Utah since mid-July. From July to Dec. 20, I had helped to formulate a proposal for a 6 5 0,000 acre High Uinta Wilderness; form a coalition of citizens to help get It established in the next several years; work on workshops to inform the public about wildland resources on the Uinta Range as well as conflicts from proposed developments; and met with both Utah legislators and the Forest Service staffs in justifying such a proposal. (The Forest Service proposal, established in 1967, is for only a 325,000 acre High Uinta Wilderness.) In addition, I served as secretary and research consultant to the Utah Wilderness Representative, attended hearings held by the Forest Service in its second go-'round at trying to get public input in determining qualifying forest lands for study for wilderness classification. Hearings were held across the nation. I attended six throughout Utah, August and September. The National Park Service released its Land Use Plan for two major National Parks in Utah: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area with a proposed wilderness area and Canyonlands National Park with a strong Utah pro-develop merit proposal for a major highway into the heart of the Park. I made written comments on both. I also attended hearings in Moab, Utah, a tourist and mining center, with both the Forest Service and the Park Service. At the Forest Service hearings the miners, who are militant against any wilderness in Utah, took over the meeting and scared us to death. At the Park Service hearings in the same place, we had worked to prevent this. A Utah Representative, on the Interior Sub Committee on Appropriations, had threatened the Pari; Service with a cut in funds if they wouldn't construct this confluence road in Canyonlands. (Up to the confidence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.) This legislator wanted to meet in secret with the Director of the Park Service, Whalen, and local and State officials and force the issue. We heard about this and forced the Park Service to have an open hearing in Moab and we got some 12 5 environmentalists to attend. Consequently, local people who look for the anticipated tourist buck from developments in our National Parks, were outnumbered - yet each side "spoke" their piece more or less rationally. (I even got my 2$ worth in!) |
