As stewards of the nation's public lands, the Bureau of Land Management often finds itself in an untenable position.

Recreationists want access to lands for off-highway vehicle use. Ranchers want grazing allotments. Oil, gas and mining companies want to extract natural resources, while environmentalists want more land set aside for wilderness study.

So it's not surprising that the BLM has received an earful from dozens of constituency groups as it works through the process of updating its resource management plans throughout the state of Utah. Some of the plans are more than 20 years old.

First is the BLM's Price Field Office, which manages some 2.5 million acres of public lands in Carbon and Emery counties. The Price land-use plan will determine the future management of the San Rafael Swell, Nine Mile Canyon and the Book Cliffs.

Environmental organizations, as part of the public comment period, are protesting the amount of lands the preliminary resource plan envisions opening to oil and gas exploration as well as off-highway vehicle use. Representatives of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, among others, picketed in downtown Salt Lake City Tuesday to air their concerns. Theirs are legitimate concerns that need to be considered in context with the needs and desires of other public lands users.

While there is a predictable cast of characters in any public lands issue, the silent majority must also play a role in the BLM's deliberations about the best management practices for the area. While some land users come to think of public lands as their own, everyone must become more sensitive to the multiple-use philosophy that has guided public lands in the West for decades. This planning process ought to encourage less-vocal users of public lands to raise their concerns, which may differ vastly from those of the more vocal and organized constituency groups.

Published in 1983, the Price resource management plan is quite outdated. It does not include the San Rafael management area, which is now overseen by the Price BLM Field Office. Nor does the old plan contemplate the vast proliferation of off-highway vehicles that has occurred in the past decade or technological advances that enable energy companies to extract oil and gas with far less environmental disturbance.

These are but two considerations that the BLM must contemplate as it develops a new management plan for the area. The public is encouraged to help shape the draft land-use plan that is expected to be completed later this year by participating in the public comment period, which ends Oct. 15. Comments can be sent to the BLM Price Office at 125 S. 600 West, Price, UT 84501 or at pricermp.com.