Whistling Dixie in Congress and on the Golf Links

Dixie is the colloquial term for southernmost Utah, so called from its warm climate — palm trees grow there — and a failed 19th Mormon Church experiment in cotton planting. St. George in Washington County is the heart of this Dixie, not Alabama. Like its close neighbor, Las Vegas, the area has been booming. One never really knows why an area booms. Is it word of mouth alone? Boosterism, a desire to be in on the ground floor, or a lemming-like advance? Now, Washington County, Utah is a gem. Only 110 miles of Las Vegas, it has two colleges, a major medical facility and more scenic beauty than anyone not familiar with the area can imagine. It is home to the Red Rocks area of Utah — a pristine desert landscape that borders the world famous Zion National Park and the Mojave Desert. An odd place for a city of mega-mansions and golf courses, certainly, this driest county in the second driest state in the Union, but so was Las Vegas.

Some in the local county and city government was the Las Vegasification to continue, minus the casinos and bars — this is Utah, after all, and the polygamist Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint sects run out of Hildale (and its neighbor, Colorado City, Arizona) is in Washington County. Washington County has been a very popular place for financially secure people in the Salt Lake area to retire: lots of sun, palms, little snow or ice, golf galore, and as always, location, location, location. This is an area of unfathomable beauty: red sandstone formations, and a safe, secure, family friendly place.

But boosterism has come at a price, socially, environmentally and politically. The local three man county commission has been boosting more growth at public expense masked in “environmentalism” in the disingenuously named S. 3636/HR 5769, the “Washington County Growth and Conservation Act” sponsored by Senator Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson. This bill was thankfully dead with Hastert’s recent last gavel bang, but it has a chance of rearing its head again in the new Congress.

This bill seeks to redefine pubic lands, the majority of which are already under the protection of the Zion National Park, while failingto protect over 70% of the land that is of “wilderness quality” and to give away land to the highest bidders and carve out water, utility, transportation and off road vehicle track corridors. Yes, corridors, not corridor. The bill sought to sell off 40 miles square of public land — with no methodology of determining where as well as to give away land to the County outright!

Just coincidentally, one of the county commissioners, Alan
Gardner happens to have a large interest in “The Ledges” an “upscale” housing and golf development on the edge of the Zion National Park in St. George, along with his St. George city councilman brother Larry. Both also own grazing contracts with the Bureau of Land Management in the wilderness area outside the city for their cattle business. Equally coincidentally, another county commissioner, Jay Ence, who is pushing these bills happens to be the former head of a development company whose three nephews now own the company following his retirement. The Salt Lake Tribune, notes that just for starters,

Environmentalists, some local officials and residents oppose the plan, which also outlines a route for a new highway through tortoise habitat in the Red Cliffs Desert Preserve that potentially could link a development in which the Gardner brothers havea financial interest and land they own to Interstate 15.

but adds that

To their credit, Ence and the Gardners seem to have scrupulously followed Utah law concerning conflicts of interest while in public service. They’ve certainly done some good as public servants and undoubtedly feel that election to office is a mandate for their pro-growth agenda.

 

One might term the SL Tribune’s corrolary to be “damning with faint praise,” at best. The local St. George newspaper, TheSpectrum, has also exposed the connections between the developers and city/county “fathers” of Dixie with less word mincing.

Seldom has such legislation been met by such outrage by the press, environmental and citizens groups and even business as this fiasco. The SierraClub; Peter Metcalf, the head of Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd., and a board member of the Outdoor Industry Association; the Zion-Mojave Wilderness Organization , the Southern Utah Wilderness Association (SUWA), and thousands of individual Utahans and lovers of nature and proponents of intelligent growth/conservation strategies have joined in opposing these bills. Even the Bush Administration’s own Department of the Interior, in the person of Chad Calvert , Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary of the Interior, Land and Minerals Management opposed these bills!

The proposed public highway through the desert (near The Ledges luxury housing development partially owned by the Brothers Gardner) happens to be a sanctuary for the desert tortoise. The “water developlment corridor” aspect is a proposed 90 mile cross country pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George, to feed the thirst of the golf links and 200,000 new homes that the local developers want to see. Over 25 Million people downstream of Lake Powell on the Colorado River would be affected by these bills if the water development was allowed! ATV trails! High lines! Squashed tortoises! Land giveaway! Corporate welfare! How about a pony and a Mercedes for the each member of the Washington County Commission and St. George city council while we’re at it?

The people of Washington County don’t want unbridled growth.
They want wise oversight. They want to see the Red Rocks and hike the canyons unimpeded, not a New Las Vegas. As a matter of fact, had these two bills not died in the House and Senate committees where they sat ready for action on the floor, this may have been a new low in corporate welfare and disingenuity. Luckily they died, but they may return…

And if you think that is bad enough, wait until you learn about the gas development proposed in Dixie…..

Action Alert — Stop Development of Zion-Mojave Wilderness

PDA
Action Alert

Urge your Representative, especially
those in the House Resources Committee to oppose the present bill HR
5769
This bill is suspect from environmental, conservation and
cultural reasons — Even the Bush Administration is in opposition!

HR 5769, introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) on 12 September 2006
and its companion bill, S. 3636 introduced by Sen. Bob Bennett
(R-UT)
on the same date has the short title of The Washington County Growth and
Conservation Act of 2006. Despite its stated desire to
“conserve,” in reality, the bill does while designating certain areas
of the environmentally sensitive Zion-Mojave area of Washington County,
Utah, protected areas, does much more than that. It seeks to
authorize — at government expense — “critical water, transportation
and utility corridors.” A similar proposed designation of lands
in Nevada (the White County
Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006) was
to be subject to public hearings on disposal of public lands, while
this bill allows over 20,000 acres to be gobbled up for such projects
as developers might see fit with no such public input required.
The Nevada bill also sought to help purify the waters of Lake Mead, and
promote water conservation and the development of affordable housing
through Nevada.

The full text of the bill(s) are available via GovTrack.us
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5769)

During initial subcommittee testimony against the bill, Jerry
Greenberg, Vice President for Regional Conservation with The Wilderness
Society on behalf of Friends
of Nevada Wilderness, The Nevada Wilderness Project, Campaign for
America’s Wilderness, Red Rock Audubon, and The Wilderness
Society spoke in opposition to the Washington County legislation.

“Greenberg noted that the Nevada and Utah bills are very different. The
Washington County bill has inadequate wilderness protection, leaves out
many of the most ecologically sensitive areas, and sets arbitrary
mandates on land sales. While conservationists have consistently said
they believe the acreage figure for land sales in the Nevada bill is
excessive, the parcels must be identified through the BLM’s resource
management planning process. The Utah bill mandates sales for
approximately 20,000 acres and does not require that those lands be
identified through a public planning process.” — Wilderness.org
(http://action.wilderness.org/wildernessII/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=2601348)

Not merely opposed by national environmental groups, but even by
President Bush’s own Bureau of Land Management, the bill is seriously
flawed. Chad
Calvert, the Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary, Land and Minerals
Management, US Dept. of the Interior, noted the danger in the bill in
its present form in testimony before the House Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health on 16 September 2006. Calvert noted
that not only would the sale of the nearly 25,000 acres “effectively
require the Treasury to borrow more funds to pay this interest” on the
sale, but that the parcels proposed for sale were unacceptable to the
BLM since “the density of unique and special cultural resources in the
identified area is exceptionally high.”
(http://www.blm.gov/nhp/news/legislative/pages/2006/te060914.htm)

This bill, while protecting a certain percentage of public lands in
Utah, also is a handout for developers who are seeking corporate
welfare to produce more housing in a fast-growing area adjacent to some
of the most environmentally sensitive and culturally significant wild
regions in the West. The “development” portion of the bill’s text
would effectively allow the City of St. George, already the
fast-growing city in Utah to be additionally overdeveloped by the
utility, water, and transportation corridors proposed. Rather
than seeking to conserve electricity and water and fossil fuel use in
the Zion-Mojave area, this bill seeks to encourage it — at public
expense.

Additionally the Southern
Utah Wilderness Alliance is also fighting the drilling of gas wells
in the White River Wilderness Area along with the pork barrel aspects
of HR 5769. The BLM has planned for drilling and construction of roads
for access through this presently pristine wilderness surrounding the
New River. They seek input from the public at the above link to
show disapproval of this move.
(http://www.suwa.org/entry.php?entry_id=792)

Urge all your Representatives and Senators to oppose the bill, HR 5769
and to comment in opposition on the Bureau of Land Management’s plans
to develop the New River Wilderness.

Talking Points;
Environmental Conservation
Cultural Significance
Unsustainable Growth
Corporate Welfare