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Group wants to protect Utah rivers

Just what we need! A coalition of smug out-of-state carpetbaggers and smug local elites telling us what we want regarding our rivers.

Sadly, this crowd equates lack of dissent during their elites-only $500-a-plate fundraisers with public mandate. Reminds me of "Envision Utah," a similar -- probably overlapping -- coalition that had the temerity to suggest Utahns demand draconian fuel rationing measures, including higher taxes and odd-even scams, dictating what days we could drive our cars by our teminal license plate numeral.

Here's a suggestion -- go find rivers in your own states to lock up with federal regulations and red tape. Leave ours alone!

Rural county commissioners are reflexively opposed to any federal designation that they fear will put constraints on development. It's in their blood, at a genetic level. Unfortunately (as the see it), conservation measures - whether it be national park status, wilderness designation, or wild and scenic river status - by their very nature do this. How can you "conserve" something without providing guidelines as to how it's going to be managed?
What county and state officials REALLY want is to get an official designation that is totally toothless. They consider it free advertising for tourists, without the downside of more control over development. In the long run, this will not work; as the Green River succumbs to development pressure, word will leak out that it is no longer the world-class experience it once was, and the degraded river will no longer attract tourists.

Why would we want Nancy Pelosi and Harry Ried telling us what we can and cannot do in Utah?

We surely love our rivers for family activities day in day out, especially in summer - picnics, cookouts, family reunions, camping, fishing, canoeing. Let's save the rivers that are still free-flowing, wild and beautiful. This report is a good first step.

"It's not like we're going to stop any of these sorts of development activities from happening. We just want to make sure they're consistent with the way the river is today," Danenhauer said. If there is a road or development near a river, such as the Logan River, any development would need to be consistent with what's there today.�

In other words, the improvements made over the last few years to the upper Logan Canyon highway would not have been allowed. Nor would any future use of private property in the entire drainage be possible or improvements to campgrounds to reduce stream contamination be permitted because that is not consistent with what is there today. And since it is the river they are concerned with and not the canyon, could property owners all the way to the river�s end at Cutler Reservoir be forbidden from using their property for anything but it�s current purpose indefinitely into the future?

I am sorry, my friend, but this is a federal designation and every time we give jurisdiction of our lives and lands to the congressional leaders of the eastern states, we loose big time!

Everyone loves rivers, clean air, etc.
However, that does not mean that we should, or need to, stop all development and keep everything wilderness.

Keep one small patch of wilderness somewhere and let the granola eating tree huggers go hike there all they want, but make them BUY THE LAND they want to stop development on.

For me and my family, keep on building roads, homes, and mining the minerals we need, and grazing cattle and damming up water for us to use!

For those who think that people who want these designations are "carpetbaggers" who don't understand Utah, let me say that as someone who has lived his entire life in Utah, I fully support the protection for these rivers. The idea that we can perpetually develop these rivers with no negative consequences demonstrates a willful disregard for the facts and consequences of our decisions. I have lived for the past several years in almost perpetual embarrassment of Utahns' indifference toward environmental conservation. We need to WAKE UP and understand the realities of living in the second-dryest state in the U.S.

Yo prosecutor and john! Been living inUtah for 54 years. (that should count). Utah needs some space and rivers ( alot of it) to remind our kids whay peace and quite and solitude sound and feeel like, We need wild rivers to run, fish and just sit around and enjoy. It sounds like you would be more happy in LA in a trip mall or on I5 at rush hour!

Anon.4:04,
You missed Prosecutor's point. Local control and private property rights allow Utahans who love the outdoors to control and use the land. If you allow the Feds to dictate what to do with it you wind up with a mess in most cases.

The EPA went on a hunt to prosecute the owners of the smokestacks that were ruining the vista in what they deemed to be one of the most polluted national parks in the country. Had they succeeded when they found the source they would have had to cut down a lot of trees. It seems the aerosols produced by a type of tree in that region are responsible for the name of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

You will have far greater opportunity to have input into land use management by electing local leaders who are sympathetic to your cause than to give your right to self determination to someone over whom you have almost no influence. That is precisely why the constitution reserves all governmental functions to the states except a select few it enumerates at the federal level.

Just what we don't need is to turn more of Utah lands and features over to Federal bureaucrats who don't live here, never visit here, and don't really understand Utah, its people, and its lands & resources.

Keep Utah under Utahns' control.

Too bad we have all these bad feelings. SUWA and the Clinton Administration have pulled so many punches that much of Utah and the west in general will not even consider supporting ideas that may be wise and beneficial. Sometimes it aggravates me and other times I fall in the " I do not blame them" mode. We need to develop some trust for the future.

Just a line if they develope the land around the rivers where are you going to fish picknic in the malls that land will be priviet but then you could all by some for your selfs good luck