A much-hyped race through Utah's canyon country has
attracted record public comment - and exposed how difficult it is
to get the public involved in managing public lands. "It's
frustrating," says Dennis Willis, a recreation staffer in the
Price, Utah, office of the Bureau of Land Management, which is
doing an environmental assessment of the Eco-Challenge, a 300-mile
running-biking-paddling, et cetera race planned to start April 25.
The agency has received more than 800 comments - -more letters than
on anything that's happened in southeastern Utah before," says
Willis (HCN, 9/5/94). The entire Utah congressional delegation has
weighed in favorably, but 90 percent of the comments, including a
letter campaign by schoolchildren, has gone against the race. BLM
staffers feel the irony because they are also evaluating a proposed
coal-bed methane project, which would impose at least 1,100 gas
wells on public land around Price. The methane project would
significantly impact wildlife and recreation on 290 square miles
for the next 30 years or so, but so far, it has received about
one-one-hundredth the number of comments as the race. Willis
laments, "Coal-bed methane is not a very sexy issue."
