San Juan County Land Use proposal for BLM may have new life

The U.S. Department of the Interior has abandoned its proposed Wild Lands Initiative and is apparently ready to embrace a locally-driven process to develop wilderness proposals. The new direction, outlined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, sounds much like the process that has been underway in San Juan County to develop land use proposals. San Juan County began a process in the past two years, under the watchful care of Utah Senator Robert Bennett, to develop a land use proposal for the millions of acres of local land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The process was to invite all interested parties to the negotiating table and develop a locally-initiated wilderness proposal. The Wilderness Society, a national wilderness advocacy group, has represented pro-wilderness sentiments in the process. Salazar recently asked Members of Congress for their ideas of “crown jewel” areas of public lands that have strong local support for permanent protection as wilderness under the Wilderness Act. Salazar said he will deliver to Congress, by October 15, 2011, a list of areas overseen by the BLM that he believes are ready for immediate wilderness designation by Congress. Local officials seem hopeful that the new direction by the federal government will help the San Juan County Land Use proposal, but expressed skepticism that the bipartisan effort will result in a resolution of the BLM wilderness issue that has raged for three decades...more