2 Matheson bills pass committee

The House Natural Resources Committee endorsed two bills Wednesday sponsored by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that affect public lands in Utah.

One would preserve some wild and scenic Utah school trust lands in southeast Utah by swapping them for U.S. Bureau of Land Management parcels where oil and gas development is possible — which could generate money for Utah schools.

The other bill would allow Mount Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City to sell off some of its once-federal land to the Rowland Hall school for its expansion.

That bill would erase a "reversionary clause" in the deed that says if the land owned by Mount Olivet were used for anything but a cemetery, that its ownership would revert to the federal government.

Approval of both bills came on a voice vote, and both now proceed to the full House for consideration.

Matheson's Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2009 authorizes exchanging about 40,000 acres of school trust lands for roughly the same number of BLM lands. The school lands are scattered in checkerboard fashion amid federal land.

School trust lands are supposed to be used to raise money for schools from such things as mining or oil or livestock leases, but many of those lands are in scenic areas that most would like to see preserved as pristine.

Matheson has said the bill would give the BLM school lands in Grand and San Juan counties that include portions of scenic Westwater Canyon, the Kokopelli and Slickrock trials, multiple wilderness areas and some of the largest natural rock arches in the country.

In exchange, he said trusts for Utah schools wold receive BLM lands in Uintah county that have the potential for oil and natural gas that could produce significant revenue for Utah schools.

The Utah Wilderness Coalition — which includes such groups as the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance — praised the bill.

It said in a statement Wednesday that the bill "simplifies land ownership patterns and management for iconic landscapes in wilderness study areas" and benefits schoolchildren by giving them "lands more appropriate for development and the ensuing revenues that development would provide."

Matheson's bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are pushing an identical Senate bill.

About the other bill, Matheson recently told the committee in a hearing that the BLM and federal government need to help Mount Olivet Cemetery or they could soon own it.

The cemetery owns 80 acres but only uses only 20 acres for burials. Provisions in the 1909 deal that gave title of once-federal land to the cemetery association say ownership of it will revert to the federal government if the cemetery sells portions for anything but burials.

Matheson said the cemetery association financially needs to sell some of the unused land to keep its endowment fund afloat. "Otherwise, if all the land reverts back, you have the Bureau of Land Management running a cemetery in Utah."

The cemetery association is seeking to sell 13 acres to the Rowland Hall school for expansion, but deed problems have prevented the sale. Matheson said the unused land is a field of weeds now. He said Rowland Hall envisions using it not only for buildings, but trails, athletic fields and open space.

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