Grazing Lands Project

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times 

RANDOLPH, Utah. April 3, 2013.  County Commission Meeting.  There are nine individuals who are working on the Three Creeks Project.  This is a grazing project where private property, BLM land, and the Forrest Service are attempting to fold these properties into one grazing organization.  Two of the individuals were local; the other seven individuals represented the Forrest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and a consulting firm, CIRRUS.  All of these groups are attempting to follow their procedures and policies and mesh them with the other groups to come up with a single permit and cost that ranchers will be charged.   

The project was started in 2011 and came up with $340,000 to work on this project.  They presented to the Commissioners a projected time line indicating that they want to make the changes in 2014 and begin using the new combined gazing permits by 2015.  The project includes fencing, enhancing watering areas, developing other water areas, and setting up a rotation program that allows resting periods for various sections of the grazing area so that over grazing does not occur.  

The process not only must have a time line, but moves on into the process of identification of all possible issues.  Then, an array of alternatives will be considered.  The public will be allowed input at various times throughout the process. Currently five alternatives to analyze have been identified. Each of these alternatives will be analyzed considering all of the various resources and how the alternative will impact each and every resource. 

The five alternatives that have been identified are:   First, keep everything the same.  Second, build new fences to create more pastures, develop several water areas, and determine grazing rotations.  Third, reduce animal grazing by 20 percent as a protection of the sage grouse.  This reduction could be in either or both the number of animals cut and/or the amount of time grazing would be allowed.  Of course, there would be no reduction on private lands.  Fourth, no grazing on some or the parcels will be allowed.  Fifth, the high country resource alternative would take some allotments out of the forest service that are sheep only.  This means that sheep would not be included in the cattle rotation and would be kept in the higher grazing areas. 

Reference areas will be fenced.  They will be ten acres in size and placed in various locations throughout the entire area.  They will not fence any of the springs or water sources.  It appears that right now they will place in each of the current allotments.  The BLM already have 14 reference areas and would like to expand one area in the upland range area.

All reference areas will be followed closely for the next ten years.  At the end of the ten years, the various government agencies can keep or replace reference areas.  It was noted that the alternative of deferred grazing was not included in the alternatives because it would serve no purpose or need. 

There will be public comment periods, the final report will be written, decisions will be made, the public will again be given time for additional input, there will be a 15-day protest period and a 30-day appeal period.  This project is very complex just because of its size and the number of entities involved. 

This current project is on a much larger scale than similar projects.  The Commissioners requested that they be kept informed of the progress being made and asked to be informed if they can help to keep things moving and citizens informed.