Commissioner Alan Gardner

Member

Washington County, Utah Board of Commissioners

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests

United States Senate

Hearing on S. 3636 Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2006

November 16, 2006

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here
representing the citizens of Washington County, Utah. We are a County
experiencing tremendous growth. In August of this year, the U.S. Census
listed us as the fifth-fastest growing county in the United States, and
the fastest growing metropolitan planning organization in the nation.

Nearly 1000 new residents per month arrive in Washington County, drawn
by the wonderful natural beauty of the land, the warm climate, and the
diverse recreational opportunities. The climate is not only attractive
to the residents and visitors, but also provides a healthy habitat for a
number of plants and animals, including twelve different threatened or
endangered species, some found nowhere else in the world. Our beloved
Zion National Park also draws millions of visitors annually. As a
result, many different groups rightly feel some ownership in the future
of our area. Our legislation is an honest attempt to balance all of
these needs and points of view.

I have been a Washington County Commissioner since 1996 and am a native
of the county. My ancestors helped to establish the first communities,
the first coming in 1855, over 150 years ago. I have a deep appreciation
for them, and for the work they did and the hardships they endured to
create the communities which now make up Washington County. It is
because of this heritage that I have such a strong sense of
responsibility toward assuring that the future of Washington County
protects the quality of life which my Grandparents and many like them
sacrificed to create, and which draws people to our area in such
incredible numbers today.

The extraordinarily beautiful area that makes up Washington County is
just over 1.5 million acres, of which about 84% is in some form of
Federal or State ownership. Nearly one-third of the county, over 29%, is
currently under some form of special, restrictive management. Our
legislation would add to that number. As a result, we are faced with a
tremendous challenge\-\--huge areas of public lands, some very
spectacular, on one hand, and less than 10% of our lands available to
accommodate the thousands of people who are coming, and are yet to come,
on the other hand. It is a formidable task to try to balance the
preservation of our special places, while at the same time assuring that
growth will be accommodated in a visionary manner that provides and
maintains a high quality of life. We are confident that our legislation
is an excellent step toward accomplishing this task.

The residents of Washington County want smart economic growth, a strong
and sustainable local job base, preservation of our special areas, and
protection of the high quality of life that makes this place special.
This legislation establishes policies that will allow us to develop a
vision for the future, and then gives us the tools to accomplish the
various elements of that vision.

I want to publicly thank the entire Utah Congressional delegation for
their support of this approach. I particularly want to thank Senator
Bennett and Congressman Matheson for sharing our vision and then working
to advance it here in the Congress. When we first approached our
Delegation Members, they quickly grasped the potential of pursuing this
objective and turned it into the bi-partisan effort you see here today.

Following an offer by then Governor Olene Walker to help facilitate
working meetings, Washington County opted to be the first county in Utah
to begin a comprehensive land use planning project. The goal was to
develop legislation similar to what had been accomplished in Clark
County, Nevada, our neighbor to the west. Washington County and Clark
County share many similar problems; extraordinary growth, large areas of
public lands, many interest groups advocating proposals for public
management, diverse populations, heavy demands on resources and
infrastructures, and so forth. The Nevada legislation, which combines
land preservation with economic development, planning for future growth,
and innovative ideas for land management, was very attractive to
Washington County. Consequently, the Washington County Commissioners,
with the assistance of the State of Utah, put together a working group.
The purpose of the working group was to hold regular comprehensive
working meetings with the final objective being land use legislation and
long term county-wide growth planning. The group was made up of people
who represented many diverse interests from around the county, the state
and the region, including individuals with both local and national
perspectives, such as the Dixie Wildlife Federation, Virgin River Land
Trust, Outdoor Retailers Association, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance,
Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, Blue Ribbon Coalition, and many others,
including federal agencies as advisors.

The members agreed at the beginning to adhere to several rules of
engagement, which included the following: They would remain at the table
until the process was finished; they would disagree agreeably so that a
comfortable atmosphere existed for the free exchange of ideas and for
open dialogue on all the issues; and, each member would keep the overall
good of the project, the bigger picture, as the focal point and
foundation of any proposals that were brought to the table.

From the beginning, the process worked well. The group scrutinized
Washington County, gathered all available data, and covered every
topic\-\--from power and transportation to endangered species. Nothing
was left off the table, and the county worked extensively to reach out
to the community for expertise and proposals that were not sufficiently
represented by the working group.

The result was a very comprehensive and very inclusive process. We did
not debate each issue, or try to hammer out some compromise deal as has
been done so unsuccessfully in the past. Rather, the data gathered and
conclusions reached by the working group were forwarded to Senator
Bennett and Congressman Matheson for development of legislative
language. Participants were also asked to submit written comments to
Senator Bennett with their conclusions and suggestions for creating
legislation based on the data gathered by the working group. Over the
course of the next 18 months, following the Nevada precedent, the bill
we are now discussing was written by Senator Bennett's staff in
coordination with Congressman Matheson's staff, and in direct
correlation with the County, members of the working group, and members
of the public. It was a very carefully developed and well thought out
process. We wanted all the stakeholders to be involved and their issues
to be heard, and they were. We were very sensitive to the fact that if
we were to err, we should err in favor of too much public participation
rather than not enough. After the proposal was far enough along to
formally introduce to the public, Senator Bennett and Congressman
Matheson held a press conference, making maps and draft language
available to all interested parties. We then held open houses in
strategic areas in Washington County where we exchanged information and
set up a process for receiving further comments from the public. As a
result of those meetings and the correlating comments, a number of
changes were made to the legislation before it was introduced.

To summarize, this has been a truly grassroots project. The
participants, for the most part, have been dedicated to its success from
the beginning, and the public has had ample opportunity to participate
in the process.

As I said, one of our foremost objectives with this legislation was to
get a handle on growth. It is vitally important that we equip the county
and the cities and towns in the area with the tools to direct the
phenomenal influx of people into the area. To this end, as a natural
extension of our land--use planning process, we have initiated what we
are calling "Vision Dixie". Vision Dixie is a comprehensive growth
planning effort modeled after the Envision Utah process used in some of
the major communities on the Wasatch Front to great success. It has also
been used very successfully in other areas of the country as well.

As the sponsor of this effort, the County has entered into an agreement
with Envision Utah, the Oquirrh Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and
all the communities in Washington County in order to create a
county-wide growth footprint which gives all the communities a vision
for growth, standards which should define how that growth must occur,
and ordinances by which those standards are accomplished. This process
will involve a great deal of public input, adding to the public input
already provided in our land use planning project. In other words, it
provides a forum for the citizens of Washington County to design their
own future.

The Vision Dixie process and this legislation are inseparably connected.
The legislation empowers, the growth planning process directs. One
cannot work to its fullest benefit without the other, and because of the
importance of this overall effort to the future of Washington County, it
is very important that we pass S. 3636.

The elements of our legislation are similar to the Nevada bills whose
precedent we have followed. It establishes permanent wilderness,
including 93, 340 acres of BLM wilderness, another 2642 acres of Forest
Service wilderness, and 123,743 acres of wilderness inside Zion National
Park. It creates the 61,000 acre Red Cliffs National Conservation Area
for the permanent habitat and protection of the endangered Desert
Tortoise, and establishes nearly 170 miles of the Virgin River as wild
and scenic.

While there are groups that espouse far more wilderness than is included
in this legislation, their tactics have produced no permanent BLM
wilderness in the State of Utah. The passage of S. 3636 would change
that stalemate. Further, there is no hard release language in this bill.
There is no law being made here that prevents future discussions or
blocks continued advocacy. We have done our best to include those lands
on which there was some level of agreement, and have excluded areas
where wilderness would make management difficult for the endangered
desert tortoise or which would not allow for the improvement of critical
winter habitat for mule deer in cooperation with the state of Utah. This
area has been devastated by fire for the last two years. Neither the
tortoise habitat nor the mule deer habitat were recommended by the
Bureau of Land Management for wilderness designation.

This legislation would also provide for the creation of the High Desert
OHV Trail. This trail has been in the planning and development stages
for several years. It will utilize established roads and trails on the
west side of the County to create a designated route for the OHV
community, thus greatly reducing the amount of resource damage that can
occur with the constantly increasing popularity of Off Highway Vehicles.
Our legislation provides for the trail to be created in an
environmentally sensitive manner, and also allows for funding for
development, monitoring, resource protection, and enforcement. Our
language for this section of the legislation is taken directly from the
"Silver State Trail" language in Lincoln County, Nevada.

The bill also provides for long-term economic development and growth
planning by establishing corridors for gas, electricity, water, and
transportation. Following the Nevada pattern, it also provides for the
disposal of up to 24,300 acres of BLM land in two tiers. The proceeds
from the sale of these lands would be distributed in the same manner and
based on the same formula as in Nevada, with 5% going to the State
permanent school fund, 2% to the County to cover administrative costs,
8% to the Washington County Water Conservancy District for identified
long-term water projects in the County, as demands dictate, and in
direct correlation with the Vision Dixie planning effort, and 85% to a
special fund for conservation projects identified by the legislation,
including preservation of critical lands, management of wilderness
areas, trail repair and reconstruction, and management of the Red Cliffs
National Conservation Area, among other things. The Desert Red Cliffs
Reserve, which is home to the desert tortoise, is one of the first and
most successful habitat conservation plans in the country. This
legislation will establish the Reserve as a National Conservation Area,
thus giving permanence to a well-functioning conservation partnership.
The 61,000 acre reserve still contains in excess of \$400,000,000 of
non-federal lands that yet need to be acquired by the United States.
Funding from land sales allowed by S. 3636 could help address this
problem, while also helping to provide habitat protection for many other
species around the county as well.

This section of the legislation, dealing with land sales, is the area
that has generated the most criticism, and conversely, has received our
most intensive effort in response to public input. We have tried to
diligently and responsibly to address public concerns in how this would
be accomplished. The first tier of 4300 acres, to be sold over a period
of at least five years, is already identified by the BLM in their
Resource Management Plan as suitable for disposal. In response to
concerns from the public, we have added two layers of further
protections for these directed sale lands: First, we have given the BLM
an extra year to further scrutinize these lands before they are made
available for sale, and, second, we have included covenant language that
assures that if something of national importance is discovered on any
lands offered for sale, the site would have to be protected.

The second tier of up to 20,000 acres, will only be made available for
sale if it is identified in the Vision Dixie growth planning process as
being very important to the overall county growth footprint, and then
would be sold in sensible increments over a period of 10 to 20 years, or
longer. The Washington County Growth and Conservation Act makes it
possible for the Vision Dixie growth planning team to actually develop a
countywide growth vision and then identify lands that should be
developed as part of that countywide growth footprint. Whatever the end
product is, the fact remains that this legislation equips the Vision
Dixie Project Administrators with the ability to select those lands
which best fit the ideals created by the growth planning team and then
make them available for directed development as appropriate. Without the
legislation, the planners would be seriously handicapped in their
efforts to direct growth, create open space, and protect precious areas
while at the same time assuring the high quality of life that draws
people to this area.

There are elements of this legislation which we are not entirely
comfortable with as a Commission, and which I would like to mention in
my testimony. The first area of concern is in the designation of more
wilderness acres in the County. With 29% of the County already in some
form of special designation, adding to that number has been a difficult
pill for the County to swallow. This comes not from any anti-wilderness
sentiment, but from the sense that there must be some practical balance
to all things, and Washington County has already paid a heavy toll in
the public land preservation arena. Consequently, while some are calling
for more wilderness, we believe that it could have been less, given the
circumstances.

The second area of discomfort comes from the failure of this legislation
to cherry-stem the Sawmill Road which crosses what would become the
Canaan Mountain Wilderness Area. The road was established in the early
1900s as an access road to a sawmill based at the cliff edge in the
Canaan Mountains, where lumber was lowered many hundreds of feet by a
cable operation to the valley floor below for transport. It has
historically been a favorite trail for OHV enthusiasts, and remains a
popular area today. Based on recent court rulings, we believe that the
road was closed illegally, and should have been cherry-stemmed in this
process. While we have remained sensitive to the concerns surrounding
this road, we would like to make the point in this testimony that it
remains an area of concern for the Washington County Commissioners as
well as for other stakeholders who have been involved in this effort. We
believe that every effort should be made to recognize this problem and
keep this historic road open.

I would like to make three final points, if I may.

First, we have had ample process***.*** As you know in working with the
public, someone always finds reason to complain; especially when they
don't get everything they want. This has been a careful, deliberate
process of collaboration during which we have tried in every way
possible to draw interested stakeholders into the design of the end
product. It is an honest effort to move forward in a long-standing
stalemate. Given the outstanding conservation features of this
legislation, it is disappointing that we can't emphasize our areas of
agreement and move forward, rather than, once again, cry foul about the
few areas where we disagree. We seem continually to be forced into a
situation where someone's idea of *perfect legislation* becomes the
enemy of *excellent legislation*. S. 3636 is not perfect legislation,
but it is by every standard excellent.

Second, as I have indicated, this legislation creates good conservation.
There will never be full agreement on what should and what should not be
protected by wilderness designation, species protection, and so forth.
The process in Utah over the past three decades has been to obstruct and
deny. Good conservation, even if it falls short of someone's idea of all
that should be done, is still good conservation. To prevent its
implementation because it falls short of the goals of certain single
focus groups seems narrow-minded. We believe that any step towards good
conservation is a good step, and this legislation is a major step in the
right direction.

And third, Utah needs this bill. The combative nature of the Utah public
lands discussion demands that something be done to take a good first
step. This legislation is a very good first step, and represents the
best effort to come out of our state in three decades. To continue to do
nothing in the face of all the growth and natural resource challenges
that we face would be irresponsible. We must move forward, and S. 3636
will allow us to finally do just that.

Summarily, I would once again like to thank Senators Bennett and Hatch,
and Congressmen Matheson, Cannon, and Bishop for their wonderful help
and support in the development of this legislation. I would also like to
thank the members of the Committee today for this opportunity to testify
in support of S. 3636. I ask for your earnest consideration of this
legislation, and believe that it will establish a strong precedent in
Utah for collaboration and public process in public land matters in the
future.

Thank you.

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