By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
It was in 2008 that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) launched a major revision of its Regional Management Plan for southern Nevada. Now, after nearly ten years of starts and stops, federal land managers have recommenced the process of developing this over-arching management document for the region.
Last revised in 1998, the RMP document guides all management decisions for the 3.1 million acres in southern Nevada. Once complete, the revision will be in effect for another two decades or so.
The current revision process has not been an easy one. An initial draft plan of the RMP revision was brought forward in 2014. But it faced so much opposition and outrage from the public, cooperating agencies and local governments that the process was put on a temporary hiatus.
Now starting over again, the agency is seeking public input on what the revised RMP should look like. A series of six meetings were planned to receive that input.
Two of those meetings were held last week in northeastern Clark County. The first was in Overton on Tuesday. A second meeting in Mesquite was held the following night.
A third meeting was held in Las Vegas on Thursday. Three additional meetings are planned to be held at locations across the region this week.
The process has already gotten off to a rocky start. Though the Overton meeting was sparsely attended, local stakeholders in attendance expressed concerns that many of the proposed departures from the 2014 draft document had become significantly more restrictive.
“At first, we thought that this process was going to be fairly routine; just starting where it left off a couple of years ago” said Elise McAllister, administrator for Partners in Conservation (PIC), a local group seeking to retain access to public lands. “But there are some key differences that we found buried away in this proposal. No one had mentioned them to us or pointed them out. They have caused quite a bit of concern.”
Chief among these is a proposed dramatic increase in a planning category called Lands With Wilderness Characteristics (LWWC).
Federal designation of land as Wilderness is relegated to Congress only. But the BLM is required to keep an inventory of LWWC. This category establishes a “Wilderness concept” as a priority value for the lands.
The current proposal would triple the suggested increase in LWWC throughout southern Nevada from 242,000 acres in the 2014 draft to more than 700,000 acres in the current proposal.
More than half of that increase, over 300,000 acres, would be added in northeastern Clark County alone. This would be comprised of 14 different units of between 11,000 and 35,000 acres each. Many of these are stretched out over most of the Gold Butte National Monument. Other areas are added that nearly surround the city of Mesquite. Additional units are identified which lie adjacent to Moapa Valley communities including a large tract along the Meadow Valley Wash, a new unit in the Mormon Mountain range, and large areas surrounding the existing Arrow Canyon and Muddy Mountain Wilderness areas.
McAllister said that she was outraged when she first discovered the addition. “It was not easy to find,” she said of the LWWC additions. “It was buried away in the documents and no one was calling attention to it. And they are including pretty much everything!”
McAllister insists that LWWC is more than just a land management category. It is also a thinly-veiled laundry list to aid environmental groups in lobbying Congress for more federal wilderness, she said. To support this, she points to a federal directive she found, made by Obama-era former Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, issued in December 2010. The directive specifically discusses how and why the BLM should inventory its LWWC. “The BLM should develop recommendations regarding possible Congressional designation of lands into the National Wilderness Preservation system,” Salazar explains in the order.
“I have been in countless meetings where we have questioned this process (designation of LWWC) and we have always been told that it was just to identify resources so they can manage the land,” McAllister said. “But it is not so. Rather it is to provide a list from which environmental groups and Congress can ‘shop’ to designate new Wilderness areas.”
During a presentation at last week’s meetings, BLM planning and environmental coordinator Lee Kirk explained that the new LWWC proposed for the upcoming plan could be managed in one of three different ways by the RMP. First they could allow for other resources or uses taking precedence over the wilderness characteristics. Secondly, the wilderness characteristics could be considered equal to other resources. And finally, the wilderness characteristics could be set to take precedence over all other uses.
Which one of those three is employed on the ground in any given area could be determined by the comments received from the public in the RMP process, Kirk said.
But McAllister said that the very use of the word “wilderness” stacks the deck in favor of environmental groups seeking more restrictions. She explained that these types of categories set up a polarity between wilderness values and large-scale development, leaving nothing in between.
“It is that area in between those two special interests where most of the public that uses the land falls,” McAllister said. “And we tend to get left out because there is nothing left for us.”
McAllister said that PIC will be pushing for the development of yet another alternative in the RMP draft that allows for this diverse community use. This would give room for casual recreation and motorized vehicle use. Plus it would also keep lands open to smaller-scale community development such as rural utility rights of way and water resource exploration.
That last issue of utilities may become vital to the rural communities in northeastern Clark County. Moapa Valley Water District general manager Joe Davis said that the RMP has the potential of hemming in the district’s future plans on every side.
For example, more than 70 percent of Moapa Valley’s drinking water comes from the district’s Arrow Canyon well site. But the proposed RMP would put that site well within the boundaries of LWWC. The district is currently working to develop a new well to replace the aging production well at Arrow Canyon.
“This (putting the well site into LWWC) could drag out that process or even put it to a stop,” Davis said.
In addition, the district has identified several sites in past engineering studies for possible production wells that would assure water for future growth. All of those sites would be affected by the new LWWC proposal.
“It is hard enough right now when they (BLM) keep delaying or denying our requests for permits for right of way as things exist,” Davis said. “But once it is Lands with Wilderness Characteristics how much harder will it be? They will never, ever let it happen. And then the whole future of the community suffers.”
There are similar problems in Mesquite where Virgin Valley Water District has wells, treatment plants, pipelines, water tanks and other infrastructure that might end up in LWWC. Officials say that is unclear what problems the proposal might cause.
“The fact is that we just don’t know yet what the effect might be,” said Mesquite city councilman Dave Ballweg at Wednesday’s meeting in City Hall. “We are still trying to figure out what it will do. That’s what makes it so difficult. But I will use the City Council agenda process to put it on there and at least educate people as the information becomes available.”
BLM officials say that now is the time for the public to weigh in on these issues. McAllister emphasized the importance of local residents to register their comments.
“Some people say that making comments is just a waste of time because no one listens and nothing gets accomplished,” McAllister said. “But that is just an easy way out. That kind of thought is self-defeating because you are guaranteeing that nothing will ever get better. This is too important to just let it go without fighting for what we want. You can rest assured that other groups will be fighting for what they want: to lock things up.”
McAllister said that PIC officials would be available to meet with members of the public to help people understand the issues and prepare them to make effective comments. “We will come to them anywhere and any time to help,” she said. “All they have to do is ask.” McAllister can be reached by email at picorg@mvdsl.com or by telephone at 702-864-2464.
The current public comment period is open until February 2, 2018. Comments may be submitted by email at sndo_rmp_revision@blm.gov; fax at 702-515-5023 or mail to BLM Southern Nevada Office; Southern Nevada District RMP Revision; 4701 N. Torrey Pines Dr.; Las Vegas, NV 89130.
