Leavitt record mixed on wilds

Utah's nasty environmental wars would seem to have little in common with the troubled Middle East.

But when the late Yitzhak Rabin, a soldier bloodied by decades of Israeli-Palestinian warfare, stood next to longtime foe Yasser Arafat nearly 10 years ago on the south lawn of the White House and pleaded for peace, his words found purchase in the heart of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

"I was inspired by that," said Leavitt, who witnessed the historic September 1993 treaty attempting to bring peace to the region. "As I sat there, it just washed over me how similar the circumstances were," he said, drawing comparisons to Utah's endless battles pitting conservationists against ranchers, miners, ATV enthusiasts and local commissioners over public lands.

In Utah, as in the Middle East, the two warring sides love the same land but for different reasons.

Leavitt figured that if Arafat and Rabin could find peace by coming together on those issues on which both could agree, why not use the same parameters to find common ground in the Utah battles over wilderness, roads and a host of other environmental conflicts?

Leavitt invited both sides to walk the land with him, to identify points on which all sides were in agreement and then use that as a starting point toward building trust that would solve the more divisive disputes.

"I found there was not an appetite for that on either side," said Leavitt, who was vilified by both sides. "I learned through that whole episode . . . an important principle about environmental problem solving: That there comes a time when problems are ripe. And I concluded that it wasn't ripe."

Turns out that few of Utah's litany of environmental disputes have ripened. And a lasting resolution remains as elusive as peace in the Middle East.

Win some, lose some

Leavitt's environmental legacy is, at best, a mixed bag.

There have been some resounding successes, like a regional air quality partnership to clear up haze over the Southwest and two massive land trades that brought millions of dollars to Utah schools.

He brought open-space preservation to the forefront of growth planning, and he spearheaded efforts to improve Utah fisheries and trails.