Ken Salazar says local conservation approach should be blueprint for future

SALT LAKE CITY — Like a conductor directing an orchestra of varied instruments, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar deftly moved from person to person in a public listening session on land-use issues Tuesday morning, whether hearing from hiking enthusiasts who urged silence from off-road-vehicle users or taking complaints from four-wheeler buffs who say accessible roads are rapidly vanishing.

Although he cut short some commentators in the first session of the Salt Lake City Great Outdoors Initiative and told others to simply ask their questions, Salazar made it clear he wants to tap local, public opinion as his blueprint for the Interior Department's management strategy.

"It is really the people who live in these places who ought to have a significant voice," Salazar told a crowd numbering several hundred.

"There is great promise that these disputes that have gone on generation after generation" can be resolved, he said.

Gretchen Siegler, with the environmental studies program at Salt Lake's Westminster College, said land use decisions need to be "science-based, not emotion based. … We need areas where there is peace and quiet."

Earlier, Jack Johnston identified himself as a 45-year four-wheeler enthusiast and said motorized access, especially for seniors, is sometimes their only access to the back country.

"If there is 'wilderness' everywhere, where are we going to go? Give us a chance to have a voice. Make it fair," he urged Salazar.

Left unaddressed at the session, however, was a direct request by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert for Salazar's agency to appeal a federal court ruling July 26 that directed the Interior Department to re-examine its decision rejecting a nuclear waste repository in Skull Valley. The ruling said the agency abused its discretion.

At a news conference after the Tuesday morning session, Salazar would only say he's "taking a close look" at the ruling.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, issued a news release later Tuesday criticizing Salazar for refusing to meet with the state's congressional delegation during his visit. Bishop said that despite Salazar's having called the visit a "listening tour," the secretary indicated he didn't have time for a meeting to discuss the federal court ruling.

In the public listening session, Salazar pointed to a trio of developments in Utah that he said underscore how diverse interests can work together to resolve historically contentious issues.

A decision issued by the Bureau of Land Management last week, for example, incorporates what he has described as an unprecedented collaboration between an oil and gas company and a wide spectrum of environmental groups.