'07 banner year for conservation funding

I read with interest the letter from Belden Durtschi of Pleasant Grove titled "Old Blue got his bone," (Readers' Forum, March 5.) In his letter, Mr. Durtschi complains about the amount of funding appropriated for land conservation and open space during the past legislative session.

While I certainly wish that more funding were available, as the manager of the the LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund, the state's only fund available for the purchase of open space, I wanted to correct the record. 2007 has been a banner year for conservation in Utah. Through the leadership of House Majority Leader Dave Clark of Santa Clara, who sponsored HB102, the Land and Water Reinvestment Act, the Legislature actually set aside more than $6 million to conserve or restore open and agricultural lands.

Two programs, the Watershed Program, administered by the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and the Grazing Improvement Program, administered by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, each received $2 million in ongoing funds to restore the health of Utah's watersheds and rangelands and to fight invasive species. The program I manage received more than $2.4 million this year to help local governments, nonprofits and state agencies acquire conservation easements on, or fee title to, Utah's critical open and agricultural lands. A historic partnership between farmers and ranchers, sportsmen, conservationists, the real estate industry and others came together to promote this legislation. This partnership will continue to work to promote conservation funding at the state level in future legislative sessions.

These three programs work together as three legs of a three-legged stool to conserve and restore the most critical pieces of land in Utah. These three programs have an excellent track record. Each project they do is leveraged by as much as 6 to 1. Over the past eight years, the LeRay McAllister Fund has spent about $15 million in state money and has preserved more than 70,000 acres of critical land in 16 Utah counties. The total value of these projects is more than $100 million.

While the amount of money set aside by the state is not as high as I would like, the state is working hard, with numerous partners, to conserve and restore Utah's critical lands and waters. All Utahns can be proud of the efforts these programs have made.

I hope Mr. Durtschi and all Utahns will continue to be concerned about conservation, and I hope they will join us in the partnership to ensure sufficient funding for Utah's critical lands and waters in the future.

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John F. Bennett is manager of the LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund.