Conservation bill a sensible approach

Most communities would pay for the kind of positive press St. George receives touting its quality of life and its advantages as a retirement community.

Now it seems the entire world has come to St. George, turning a community that many Utahns escape to in the winter for its agreeable climate and golf courses into a retirement mecca, among other things. According to projections, some 600,000 people will live in Washington County by 2040.

Washington County is already experiencing some growing pains. It makes good sense to manage the explosive growth in the area and to preserve the natural wonders that make Washington County such a spectacular place to live.

A bill co-sponsored by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, aims to designate more than 200,000 acres of federal land as wilderness; designate 165.5 miles of the Virgin River and its tributaries as a Wild and Scenic River; and establish a process for disposal of 20,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands in Washington County. Eighty-five percent of the land sale proceeds would be used for protection of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, which would be designated by the bill. The remaining revenue would be allocated for state and local purposes such as the state trust fund for public education, which would receive 5 percent of the proceeds.

Although the bill has not yet been heard in committees, Bennett and Matheson have already altered the bill to address concerns of environmental groups, which were to remove the Beaver Dams Narrows water project and a proposed route that would bisect lands set aside for the Desert Tortoise Habitat Conservation Plan.

Despite those concessions, there has been no buy-in from most environmental groups, who criticize the plan as shortsighted and using public lands as a cash cow. They also contend that there is enough privately held land to accommodate future growth in Washington County so there's no need to sell BLM land.

If anything, this bill, titled the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2006, holds promise for a rational growth strategy. It has already encouraged local officials and others to agree to participate in a planning process to develop a growth and transportation vision for the county. That's a victory in its own right.

Given that it is an election year and Congress is operating on an abbreviated calendar, it is questionable whether there will be any substantive movement on the Washington County Conservation Act. But credit this bipartisan effort for taking steps to conserve land, foster a sensible planning effort and provide funding for conservation activities in one of the fastest growing areas in the nation.