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Utah
Outdoorsman Says Selling Land to Pay for Development Is Wrong for Utah
''There's a bill before Congress that would have far-reaching impacts for my backyard in Utah and could also set a precedent for where you live, especially if you -- like me -- love the public lands that make the West unique,'' writes Salt Lake City-based Black Diamond Equipment co-founder and Outdoor Industry Association board member Peter Metcalf in The Salt Lake Tribune, telling readers that the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act's name may suggest ''an enlightened melding of smart growth and conservation,'' but the bill ''sells off federal land in southwest Utah on the doorstep of Zion National Park and gives much of the proceeds to local water developers.''
Sponsored by Republican Senator Bob Bennett and Democratic Representative Jim Matheson, he writes, the bill would use the millions of dollars from the sale of up to 25,000 federal acres to subsidize a water pipeline from Lake Powell, made by the Colorado River in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 120 miles east of Washington County, and to pay for the county's numerous development projects.
Establishing ''hundreds of miles of corridors for utility lines, highways, pipelines and dam sites across currently undeveloped public lands,'' the bill ''ignores two-thirds of Utah's iconic wilderness landscapes from that region,'' land in desperate need of protection, he stresses, especially troubled by ''the dangerous precedent of selling off federal land owned by all Americans to benefit strictly local interests.''
The writer feels affected personally and professionally by this legislation, as someone who works at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and whose lunch breaks include running or skiing on wilderness trails minutes from his office, and as a business owner who sells climbing and skiing gear and represents the outdoor industry that generates $267 billion a year. Largely dependent upon long-term protection of public land, the industry has a rich tradition of ''giving back significant profit to fund public land enhancement and open space conservation,'' and he doesn't want ''to see our incremental progress stripped away by the passage of this wrongheaded bill.''
For those who use public land for recreation or business, ''this bill offers a vision of a diminished American West with 'no trespassing' signs and freedom lost,'' he warns. ''There is no justification for selling the lands that were handed down to us just for the short-term financial gain of special interests. We are now at a point where many communities throughout the West are voting to tax themselves to acquire diminishing open space and reduce sprawl,'' he concludes. ''That is the future we want to head toward. This legislation points us in the opposite direction.'' --The Salt Lake Tribune 9/3/2006
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