This is from the www.suwa.org site
If they're AGAINST this bill, you'd better make your voices heard
FOR it . . . let's hope this VERY well organized group never turns its focus
on the salt.
"LandSpeed" Louise Ann Noeth
LandSpeed Productions
Telling stories with words and pictures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
H.R. 3605 (The San Rafael Not-So-Swell Bill) continues to move through the
House of Representatives, so we remain on RED ALERT status.
Please call before Thursday if your Representative is listed in item (1)
below. Now is a great time to become more active.
* If your Representative is one of the subcommittee members listed in
item (1) below, please make that call, and then double your
effectiveness by getting friend to call also.
* If your Representative is not listed in item (1), see item (3).
(You'll also get a chance to call your representative later, as the
bill moves to the full committee and then the House floor.)
(1) What To Do
(2) Background on H.R. 3605
(3) Letters Needed on Wide Hollow Reservoir
(1) What To Do
The Representatives we need to contact are the members of the House National
Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee:
Republicans
1. Mr. James Hansen, UT-01, Chair
2. Mr. Elton Gallegly, CA-23
3. Mr. John Duncan, TN-02
4. Mr. Joel Hefley, CO-05
5. Mr. Richard Pombo, CA-11
6. Mrs. Barbara Cubin, WY-At Large
7. Mr. George Radanovich, CA-19
8. Mr. Walter Jones, NC-03
9. Mr. Chris Cannon, UT-03
10. Mr. Rick Hill, MT-At Large
11. Mr. Jim Gibbons, NV-02
12. Mr. Mark Souder, IN-04
13. Mr. Don Sherwood, PA-10
Democrats
1. Mr. Carlos Romero-Barcelo, Puerto Rico, RM
2. Mr. Nick Joe Rahall, WV-03
3. Mr. Bruce Vento, MN-04
4. Mr. Dale Kildee, MI-09
5. Mrs. Donna Christian-Christensen, Virgin Islands
6. Mr. Ron Kind, WI-03
7. Mr. Jay Inslee, WA-01
8. Mr. Tom Udall, NM-03
9. Mr. Mark Udall, CO-02
10. Mr. Joseph Crowley, NY-07
11. Mr. Rush Holt, NJ-12
(If you're not sure who your Representative is, you can type in your ZIP
code at http://www.congress.org/ and find out. But please DON'T rely on the
"send message" option at that site. E-mail messages to Congress carry
almost no weight -- letters and phone calls are the effective way to reach
them.)
If you think your member of Congress doesn't listen to you on
environmental issues, call them anyway. We want even the bad guys to know
just how hard we're going to fight this thing. We also want them to know
just how much support there is for designating wilderness.
REMEMBER: The only hope we have of stopping this bill is if members of
Congress hear opposition from large numbers of their constituents -- this
means you!
Since the Subcommittee mark-up session is this Thursday (March 23,
2000), we need everyone to phone their representative -- letters won't
get there in time, and e-mail is not an effective way to influence
Congress.
To phone your Representative:
(i) Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
(ii) Ask for Representative YYYY's office.
(iii) When you reach the receptionist at the office, ask to speak
with the aide who deals with environmental issues. (If that aide is
not available, you can leave a detailed message with the
receptionist.)
(iv) Tell the aide that you are a constituent (mention the town
you're from), and ask them to oppose H.R. 3605/S. 2048, because
(1)
it fails to designate any wilderness at all, (2) it leaves the wild
San Rafael Swell region open to continued destruction by off-road
vehicles, and (3) it lops off and leaves out important wilderness
units in the San Rafael Swell. Urge the Representative to attend the
mark-up session on Thursday.
If you learn anything interesting during your call (whether they have
received other calls on the issue, whether they seem interested, etc.),
let us know at AlertList@suwa.org .
(2) Background
On Thursday of this week, the House National Park and Public Lands
Subcommittee, chaired by our very own Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), will amend
and report a piece of legislation in a process called "mark-up." That bill
is H.R. 3605, "To Establish the San Rafael Western Legacy District," and
H.R. 3605 is as anti-wilderness as it gets.
H.R. 3605 takes your public lands, lands in the San Rafael Swell
administered on our behalf by the Bureau of Land Management, and makes them
a county recreation area almost exclusively for the benefit of noisy,
destructive off-road vehicle use. Off-road vehicles are the Number 1 threat
to the integrity of the San Rafael Swell's key geologic and biologic values.
Not only does H.R. 3605 make a mockery of land protection, but it gives to
Emery County up to $10 million of your tax dollars to promote the very kind
of destructive activities that ought to be prevented by
Congress.
Emery County wholeheartedly supports this legislation. And why not?
H.R. 3605 establishes a local advisory board, ironically called a
"Legacy Council," that the Secretary of Interior is required to consult
in preparing a plan for how the land is to be managed. In other words,
the bill essentially transfers control of our public land - land that
you and I own - to local folks who have been the most vitriolic in their
opposition to protecting wilderness.
What's good about this bill?
Absolutely nothing. This bill is nothing but a brazen attempt to
circumvent wilderness designation. If the Utah delegation is successful in
passing this legislation, public land all over the West is at risk because
any anti-wilderness member of Congress can team up with commissioners in any
of the Nye or Catron County and establish something that sounds good but
really stinks.
Strangely, the Secretary of Interior is behind this legislation. But
remember, Secretary Babbitt has talked a lot lately about setting up
national monuments, just as President Clinton did for places in
California and Arizona recently. Secretary Babbitt is in a mad rush,
over the next eight months, to make the Bureau of Land Management
"greener."
H.R. 3605 doesn't do it, but Secretary Babbitt thinks it sure looks good
that some of the most virulent anti-environmental members of Congress - Rep.
Hansen's LCV score is a pitiful 13%, twice that of Rep. Cannon's 6% voting
record on environmental issues - are supporting a measure that fits into
Secretary Babbitt's game plan.
For more on the details about what's in this horrendous piece of
legislation, see http://www.suwa.org/HR3605testimony.html -- the
testimony of Mike Matz, executive director of the Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance His testimony was presented to the National Parks and
Public Lands Subcommittee on March 2nd.
(3) Letters Needed on Wide Hollow Reservoir
BLM recently re-issued the EA for the proposed Wide Hollow dam and
reservoir. Unfortunately, the "new and improved" EA is not much
different than the initial half-baked EA BLM released last year for the
same proposed project. Last time around, your letters helped convince BLM
that the proposal and the agency's EA were stinkers.
The current proposal is the same as last time. The water conservancy
district want to use public lands to construct a 900-foot long dam about
4.5 miles northwest of Escalante, Utah. The dam would impound 6100 acre feet
of water to irrigate 2700 acres of alfalfa. The water to fill up this giant
reservoir would be taken, year round, from nearby North Creek and Birch
Creek. To divert the water from Birch and North Creeks, the water
conservancy district proposes to construct "diversion structures"
(mini-dams) approximately 100 foot wide on each stream causing small
reservoirs to form behind them to be siphoned to the big reservoir.
There's numerous problems with this proposal, including:
* The proposed reservoir would flood a portion of the Wide Hollow unit of
America's Redrock Wilderness Act. An access road would also cut through
this same unit.
* The mini-dams on North and Birch Creeks would cause the flooding of many
acres of healthy, lush riparian vegetation (including sedges,
reeds, grasses and trees). The EA conspicuously fails to disclose how many
acres of riparian vegetation would be submerged.
* Over two miles of Birch and North Creek and their streamside
vegetation would be dewatered downstream from the mini-dams.
* These creeks and riparian areas are part of the Wide Hollow, Little
Valley and Heaps Canyon units of HR 1732.
* The proposed reservoir's capacity is nearly three times the unofficial
"determined demand" for irrigation water, by our calculations. Again,
BLM omitted this piece of information from the EA.
* The EA fails to provide the current flow rate of Birch and North
Creeks, so BLM's proposition that "enough" water would be allowed to flow
below the diversion to "maintain" the riparian area is meaningless.
If the agency doesn't even know how much water flows in these little
creeks, how does it know what "enough" water for maintenance should be?
Please write letters to BLM to let them know this proposal is
significantly controversial and request that the agency either pick the
"no action" alternative or prepare a full-blown Environmental Impact
Statement to adequately assess the impacts of this proposal on the
affected resources. Incorporate some of the above points in your
letter. Address: GSENM, Attention Marieatta Eaton, 180 W. 300 N.,
Kanab, UT 84741. THANKS!
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