Group criticizes BLM plans on protection of Utah rivers

The Utah Rivers Council was critical Wednesday of six Bureau of Land Management land-use plans that protect only 28 individual Utah river segments, or 316 miles of rivers, that have been proposed for possible federal protection as "wild and scenic."

Those waterway segments, which include parts of the Green, Colorado, Dolores, San Juan and Fremont Gorge rivers, amount to about 4 percent of all rivers and streams within the BLM's six land-use plans for 11 million acres in Utah.

"We just see that as an abject failure," Utah Rivers Council executive director Ted Wilson said Wednesday.

Eventually those 28 segments could end up with a special designation under the 1968 federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The law has provided protection for at least 165 rivers in 38 states to form a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

A "wild and scenic" designation provides protection from dams, diversions and encroaching development. Wilson said he sees a need for all of the above but that the scales have tipped away from protecting enough waterways.

Wilson said his group took part in the BLM process of considering river and creek segments for protection and had "good faith" the results would yield more miles of waterways in the BLM's plans. "This is a huge piece of bad messaging," he said.

Utah BLM deputy state director Don Banks defended the BLM's role.

"Our process was comprehensive and followed all guidelines and policies required in the wild and scenic river review process," Banks said in an e-mail. "This process included close coordination with the state of Utah, local elected officials, interest groups and the public."

Last spring, the Utah Rivers Council released a report suggesting federal protection for 80 segments on rivers that included the Green, Uinta, Logan, Whiterocks and Provo rivers and parts of the Huntington, Manning and Death Hollow creeks.

Wilson, who served as Salt Lake City mayor from 1976 to 1985, said that in Utah, the federal government relies on input from county commissioners on whether to seek the federal listing for rivers.

"You put the word 'wild' on something, and they clam up," Wilson said of elected officials' role. "They get scared to death."