BLM and the Washington County Water Conservancy District have proposed a land exchange that would involve swapping 1050 acres of the Western Edge of Sand Mountain near Warner Valley with 89 acres of land in Washington near Green Springs, apparently owned by His Family Natters/Allan Carter. Washington County is designated as the Facilitator of the Exchange. You can learn more at the BLM E Planning website,  EplanningUi (blm.gov). You can also see the Public Scoping Notice which is attached.

We also obtained plans by the City of Washington to annex much of the acquired area into their City, which may be a significant influence in the exchange.

The proposed action just entered the Public Scoping phase, which is scheduled to conclude at 5:00 PM on April 13, 2023. UPLA, DRATS, Mayor Nanette Billings (Hurricane), BlueRibbon Coalition, and Tri State ATV have been meeting with BLM, Water Conservancy, and the City of Washington to learn more about the project.

We attached a couple illustrations to show the following:

• An Overall view of the Washington City Annexation Plan, which shows the proposed BLM Exchange areas, the new Washington City Annexation, and the proposed reservoir in the valley.
• In this photo, you can see the Red Outlined section was the land originally requested in October 2022, and the Green Outline shows the expanded area they added in February. The exchange and City Annexation include all of the area around the Pipeline Road and disbursed camping sites, and portions of West Rim including the Steps and The Funnel. It also shows our proposal to push the land exchange back to the 2950’ elevation right around the reservoir edge.
  

We were previously informed when the reservoir was done, we would lose the lower parts of Fault Line and Sandcutter, as well as the camping/staging area near Hwy 7, but when we learned that, we constructed the Ridgeline Trail at substantial expense to maintain access from Warner Valley.

We are extremely concerned for many reasons, including the following:

• BLM will give up 1050 acres of Sand Mountain in exchange for 89 acres in St George
• We will lose access to the West Rim Trail, the Restroom on Pipeline Road, the disbursed camping areas, and possibly the Ridgeline Trail we constructed to mitigate the reservoir loss.
• We will lose staging and camping in Warner Valley
• There has apparently been no decision about what agency would oversee recreation in the newly acquired area, but it seems likely it will become a fee area.
• If access to Sand Mountain is impaired from Washington Dam, it will impact the load on other roads including our newly constructed Waddy’s Corral Staging area.
• We are extremely concerned that the City of Washington will be annexing the land surrounding Pipeline Road and West Rim, and that they may permit development on top of the Rim; the views over a lake will skyrocket land values. Development would bring a whole host of issues including loss of the tremendous views from above by having buildings/homes on top of the ridge, user conflicts between residents/occupants and OHV users.
• We only have 30 days to inform the public and submit scoping comments.

We have been working hard on this for 4 weeks to get this information. This is the part where we need you!

What we need you to do:

Attend the Public Scoping Meeting and voice your concerns. next Tuesday, March 21 from 5:00 to 7:00 at the St George Library, Forsyth Community Room B, 88 W 100 S, St George, UT 84770

We will inform the media of the event and urge them to cover it, so we urge you to drive your 4x4s and street legal machines to the meeting to show the level of concerns on this.

We have a great relationship with BLM in the St George Field Office, and it is very important that we are vocal, but respectful during the meeting. It is very likely that the crowd may exceed the capacity of the room, so please be patient. Representatives from BLM will meet with small groups of people at a time. They will also provide Comments Forms to you and help you learn how to submit them.

Following is a brief description of the Scoping process in the NEPA Review that may guide you in formulating your questions/comments for the meeting. We will have a handout for you when you enter the meeting.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to involve the public in the planning process and seek their input through a scoping process. Effective NEPA scoping comments for BLM should pose the questions or issues to be looked at, not provide answers.

1. Specific information about the proposed project and its potential impacts on the environment and local communities.
2. Identification of any alternatives to the proposed project that could mitigate or avoid potential negative impacts.
3. Discussion of the potential cumulative effects of the proposed project in combination with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions.
4. Analysis of potential impacts on wildlife, water resources, cultural and historic resources, and other sensitive environmental resources.
5. Request for meaningful public participation throughout the NEPA process, including opportunities for public comment and involvement in decision-making.
6. Request for transparency and disclosure of all relevant information, including scientific data and analysis, underlying assumptions, and potential conflicts of interest.
7. Discussion of any potential economic impacts of the proposed project, including impacts on local jobs, property values, and tax revenue.
8. Recommendation for monitoring and mitigation measures to minimize or address any adverse environmental impacts.
9. Discussion of any potential long-term impacts of the proposed project on the environment and local communities.
10. Request for BLM to consider the full range of alternatives and potential impacts, rather than limiting the analysis to a narrow set of options.

Stop The Sale of Sand Mountain is a joint effort by these local organizations.

COPPER GLOBE MINE.

38.80312463885838, -110.91094371996786

Located in the San Rafael region just south of the I-70, this very unique deserted mine is located on the Devils Canyon & Copper Globe mine trail, which is a connector to the Sulphur Canyon overlook and the Devils Canyon Trails. These create a nice loop trail from the Interstate back to the Interstate.

The Copper Globe Mining area is a great opportunity for visitors to explore this very historic mine that was in operation from the 1900 – 1905. The Copper Globe mine is distinct from the mining in the surrounding area because it was a copper mine, rather than Uranium, which dominated the mining especially later in the Cold war era.

No copper was actually successfully smelted due to the low quality of the ore. Features at the site include mining cabins, mine tunnels, a water cistern and most interesting of all a 75’ long pile of lumber, it was believed that the miners left the Globe mine so quickly that the pile of firewood was never used fully for its purpose to fire the smelter.

You can enjoy exploring the whole site on lots of interesting trails which wind through the area.

The site is in a remote area, remember to bring water and supplies for your time at the site, and while the large pile of lumber is tempting, do not collect any of the wood for any reason as well as campfires due to the historical importance of the of this feature of the site.

Published by Colin Smith

On March 17-18, 2023, volunteers from Utah Public Lands Alliance, Desert Roads and Trails Society, St George Jeepers, and Ride Utah will be meeting at Waddy’s Corral on Sand Mountain to work on several service projects around the area. We are expecting attendance at this event to be unprecedented in scope and size. Combining the resources of 4×4 and UTV/ATV groups working together, along with our partners, the Bureau of Land Management is the way we will win the fight to keep our public lands accessible.

Among the projects we are tackling will be the completion of the staging area fencing, installation of educational street signs and obstacle plaques, cleanup of the Warner Valley and Washington Valley Staging Area, and repairs to the damage to the Competition Hill Composting Toilet.

All Volunteers should report to Waddy’s Corral each day at 9:00 AM for a quick meeting and to split up to tackle one of the projects. Volunteers should bring an assortment of hand tools, shovels, pick axes, trash grabbers, 5 gallon buckets, gloves, water, lunch, and snacks.  Pickups or trailers are very helpful on the cleanup projects.

BLM is providing logistical support including dumpsters and trash bags.

We expect to have media present to cover the event, and we encourage all participants to take photos of the effort and to share them on social media with a hashtag of #sandmtnproject2023

For more information, please email us with your questions

Loren Campbell
President
Utah Public Lands Alliance

Together We Will Win,
But We Can’t Do It Without You!

Come out and help support Matt’s Off Road Wrecker Olympics March 8-11 at Sand Hollow State Park. Matt’s has generously agreed to make a donation to Utah Public Lands Alliance for our help in getting volunteer staff for the event.

The schedule of events will be:

1. Wednesday will be preregistration, so we will need help at both in Sand Hollow State Park to setup the vendor area, and at Sand Hollow Resort to check people in and give directions.
2. Thursday all of the events will be in the staging area near the tunnel. Volunteers will be
3.  assigned to help with registration, wrecker events such as Welding Competition, Dead Vehicle Pulls, Rollover Recovery, Flex Off and More. We will also need help with the vendor show at the end of the day. We will need to cover 62- 4 hour s
   hifts this day.
4. Friday will be on the Mountain at Triple 777s. Mad Moose is donating 50 SxSs we will use for our volunteers to shuttle people up and down the mountain to 3 different viewing areas where the competition will be held. Drivers for this will need to be at least 25 years old and must have the OHV Education Course Certificate. We will need to cover 100- 4 hour shifts on this day, so we need a lot of people to signup for Friday, the majority of which will be assigned to drive the SxS’s to shuttle people
5. Saturday will a vendor show, closing ceremony and cleanup activities.

To sign up, you need to do 2 things….

1. click on this link to select the shifts you’d like to be assigned

AND

1. Complete this volunteer information sheet to indicate your t shirt size

It will be a fantastic and exciting event, and you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy all the activities. Every volunteer will receive a t shirt, water, and snacks.

People say sausage making is not a pretty process, but it sure tastes great when you put it on the grill. The same can be said about politics and legislation. UPLA has been busy in the sausage making business of monitoring and contacting the Sponsors about bills

• HB 384 (Representative Jeffrey Stenquist) was making changes to the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure funding that did not give OHV and Boating a strong voice at the decision making table on the distribution of funds received from Sales Tax. We still have the Director of DNR as a voting member, and we were able to get our OHV and Boating Program Managers with Advisory Seats on the 15 member panel. This bill does not affect the Restricted OHV funds, which do keep OHV and Boating Program Managers as Voting Members on approving grant requests.

that we are interested in.  I am very proud to say that we have a very capable and skilled team in working with legislators to get bills authored, edited, and passed or defeated that affect Outdoor Recrreation and our public lands.

These are 760 bills available in this current legislative session, these are the ones we have been actively engaged in:

Passed

• HB 55 was a cleanup bill to last year’s OHV Education bill to fix some issues with the license and registration processes. No significant changes to OHV or the original OHV Education Bill.

Support or Watch

• HB 262 (Representative Casey Snider) was a bill that would have restricted access to Wildlife Management Areas throughout Utah to only people with current valid hunting or fishing licenses. We strongly opposed this change, and worked with the Sponsor of the bill to have that requirement removed. The bill has been set aside for now with no further action, but we are watching it.
• HB 299 (Representative Casey Snider) is a Bill modeled on the OHV Grant Program but for Boating. The OHV Restricted Fund grants have been very popular. We are very pleased that this original bill sponsored by OHV advocates has become a model in Utah and many other states in adopting programs for outdoor recreation. We are in full support of this Bill.
• HB 444 (Representative Jeffrey Stenquist) is a companion bill for Grant Funding for Recreational Vehicles, based on our OHV Grant Program. We are very pleased that this original bill sponsored by OHV advocates has become a model in Utah and many other states in adopting programs for outdoor recreation. We are in full support of this Bill.
• HB 421 (Representative Jefferson Moss) is a bill that will give the State Legislature control over the Utah School and Institutional Lands Trust Administration (SITLA) SITLA is charged with administering lands granted to the trust by the Federal Government when Utah became a State. The purpose is to support schools and education. Largely, SITLA has operated independently with little oversight, this bill gives the Legislature financial control over SITLA. We strongly support the passage of this bill
• HB 200 (Representative Stephanie Gricius) is a bill that eliminates a prior provision that made transporting an unregistered OHV vehicle an infraction. This bill eliminates that. We strongly support this bill.

One thing you can count in politics is that nobody ever gets everything they want, but all of the Representatives associated with these bills have listened to our arguments and most  of them have have adopted amendments. This caused us in many cases from Opposed or Watch Closely to Support. We’d like to recognize them for their willingness to listen to us and adjust their bills.

Overall, we think the result has been some decent tasting sausage, but I’d love to hear what you think. If you know of a bill related to use of Public Lands that needs our attention, please let me know.

Loren Campbell
President, UPLA
President@UtahPLA.com