By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Interior, stressed the importance of local input on any future planning for the Gold Butte public land complex in a recent visit to the area last week.

On Wednesday morning, September 28, Hayes toured several sites in the Gold Butte area. Accompanying him on the tour was Neil Kornze, senior advisor to the director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Mel Meiers, BLM’s Southern Nevada associate district manager, Gayle Marss-Smith, assistant field manager of the BLM Las Vegas field office and Sendi Kalcic, BLM wilderness specialist.

In the afternoon, Hayes and his team also met with a group of around 50 local people at a stakeholders meeting held at the Falcon Ridge Hotel in Mesquite.

Hayes explained that his visit was part of a larger tour of several western sites that had been identified as possible places needing further protection.

“My boss, (Interior Secretary) Ken Salazar is extremely interested in finding consensus approaches for protecting special places in the U.S.,” Hayes said. “He is looking for places that many folks believe should merit special protection.”

Hayes said that Salazar had asked Congressional representatives to offer recommendations on areas that ought to be protected.

But just what those protections are, and how they are implemented, should be based on a consensus built among people living in the nearby areas who know the lands best and use them most, Hayes said.

“They don’t have to be wilderness designations,” Hayes said. “They can be protections that preserve existing uses and make them permanent, including recreational vehicles, for example.”

“We want to get away from the notion that: number 1, the federal government is coming in and telling you what to do; and number 2, the philosophical question of whether we are going to protect this area or not, are we going to call it wilderness or not. What does that mean? Let’s put all that aside. Let’s work at the local level and see if there are some positions that come out about areas that the local communities and representatives think will be better off with some level of protection.”

Hayes said that Gold Butte was one of several areas that had been brought forward. But he said that he and his team had come to listen to local residents on the matter.

“We come here with no predilections of what we should do or not do,” he said. “(Gold Butte) does seem like a good candidate for consideration by Congress for some type of protection, but the nature of it, and how to work it through, I don’t know.”

“We don’t really have a formula for how to protect important places,” Hayes continued. “The recipes that seem to make the most sense are the ones that take into account historic use of special places and how to protect those uses, and to protect the values that the communities care so much about.”

State Assemblyman Cresent Hardy said that he had spoken personally with Congressman Joe Heck, Congressman Mark Amodei and Senator Dean Heller.

“They will not be supporting any wilderness designation out here, so I’d like to take the politics off the table,” Hardy said. “I like what you said, that we’re going to work on a plan. I think that’s the direction we want to go out here to save certain areas, but a wilderness designation is not what we believe is the best thing for this area.”

Terry Roberts, programs director for Friends of Gold Butte, recalled her pioneer heritage in the area and the value that the Gold Butte area has played to her family. She stated that the Friends of Gold Butte organization strongly supports a National Conservation Area (NCA) designation for the area with additional wilderness.

Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board member, Dustin Nelson said that a top-down approach to protection of Gold Butte would be the wrong direction.

“I would like to see something that is grown from home and pushed from a broad coalition of local residents,” Nelson said. “I know we have a diversity of people here who feel different ways about it, but if a consensus is going to be reached, I don’t think it’s going to come from the federal government down.”

Nelson pointed to the fact that a management plan for Gold Butte was already in process involving area stakeholders working in cooperation with local BLM officials.

“I would ask where the current tools are failing,” he said. “Why aren’t we on the local level allowed to build a plan that works for the community? And when I say community, I don’t mean Logandale, I don’t mean Mesquite; I mean the community of people who use the areas, and that is a diverse array of people. I would like to see a solution that works for all of us.”

Former Mesquite mayor, Susan Holecheck, agreed.

“One of the main themes that I have heard is that the people who live here want to have input (on Gold Butte),” she said. “We hope that all of us, or at least representatives from each of the jurisdictions, are invited to the table, so that we can have some input.”

Holecheck also stated her belief that, if Gold Butte became a mandated NCA, it would bring greater opportunities for education and more funding for management.

“An NCA would also bring tremendous economic opportunity to Mesquite and the region,” she said.

Hayes said that only Congress could create an NCA or wilderness area and that such a Congressional decision would require a consensus approach.

“But in some cases the community wants to make sure that the process sticks by bringing a more formal designation,” Hayes said. “There can be a potential advantage when Congress affirms a conservation approach for an area. That is that future BLMers in 5 or 10 or 20 years don’t come in and overturn the way we want the lands to be used.”

John Hiatt of the Red Rock Audubon Society said that with the increase in population in the region, he had seen increased use of the Gold Butte area. This has brought significant damage to important areas, he said.

“When rock art is gone it is gone; it can’t be replaced,” Hiatt said. “I am convinced that the area needs higher level of protection.”

Partners In Conservation chairman Lindsey Dalley said that no one disagrees about the need for protection of Gold Butte. But where the disagreement has arisen is in the narrow scope of conservation possibilities offered, Dalley said.

“Just protection alone is very simple,” Dalley said. “I can protect an area with nothing more than $1000 worth of chain link fence. But, while that may be effective in protecting the land, it doesn’t preserve it and its traditional uses.”

“All conservation is local,” Dalley continued. “Until we put real community-based conservation in motion we will only have exclusion. We need to work hard to bring the community into the game.”

Dalley cited one example of success at this in the positive relationship which has recently developed between area stakeholders and local BLM officials.

“We have a good working relationship with the BLM here,” he said. “We are trying to address a lot of these problems right here. It is working. Let it work.”

Hayes asserted that the interest in Gold Butte had been generated from people in Nevada. But he agreed with the concept of broadening the scope of protection so that it didn’t just entail walling the area off. The resources of the area ought to include historical uses, he said.

“There are some areas that are so unique, so important, that we don’t want to take chances that they’ll be messed with by future bureaucrats or whoever,” Hayes said. “So let’s hard-wire it in that this is going to be an area that we’re going to preserve and protect current uses the community thinks make sense, that are consistent with the land.”

Mauricia Baca, executive director of the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, agreed that an NCA designation would increase the visitation in the area. This would be good for Nevada and the local communities, she said.

But with more people there is a greater need to take care of these areas, she said.

“If we designate these areas as monuments or any kind of new conservation designation without backing that up with proper funding and staffing, we’re not going to be doing anyone a favor,” she said.

Clint Bentley, of the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, pointed out that federal designations often affects that ability to maintain water features for wildlife.

“In Gold Butte, due to the last 21 years of no grazing in the allowed area, the water rights for beneficial use of wildlife have been disregarded and not maintained,” Bentley said.

He said that wilderness areas were often bad for wildlife because they excluded things like helicopter landing sites which allow agencies to transport crews into remote areas and maintain springs and seeps that sustain wildlife.

“These designations in effect hamstring state agencies from doing what they are supposed to be doing,” he said.

Bentley also requested that renewable energy facilities not be considered in vast open areas of Gold Butte where they would affect bighorn sheep herds and other wildlife.

“Solar energy is a good example of why you might want to consider a special designation,” Hayes remarked. “The BLM has authority to use the land in a variety of ways, including solar energy. Yes there would be a public process, but there would always be a risk. Protection should be considered if possible future use is incompatible with traditional uses.”

Bunkerville Town Board member Brian Haviland expressed concern that his small community, which includes the vast Gold Butte area in its boundary, has often been overlooked in the process.

“Frankly my community has felt railroaded by special interest in fighting this Gold Butte issue for years,” Haviland said. “Because of that we don’t have the confidence that the federal government will actually support what we as locals want to do without changing something before it gets to Congress.”

Hayes said that he was impressed with the community passions surrounding Gold Butte.

“I understand that you appropriately fear that what you love will somehow get screwed up,” he said. “You’ve got ATV use that’s responsible and historical. You have historical artifacts that people love and respect. You’ve got recreational opportunities that people want to continue. I don’t see why these things can’t be accommodated and you can’t get more permanence to the uses that you think are appropriate and that you want to see your kids and their kids still be able to use in much the same way you’re using them now. But it’s risky, you’re right.”

Nancy Hall of Friends of Gold Butte stated that most of the wilderness areas being recommended by her organization as part of its NCA proposal are in roadless lowlands which is tortoise habitat.

“You can’t drive into these areas now,” she said. “So whatever legal uses are there now, you will still be able to do them then.”

Partners in Conservation administrator Elise McAllister pointed out that an NCA designation would not be a guarantee that vandalism and other damage would not take place. She pointed to the recent instance of damage done to petroglyphs at the Red Rock NCA.

She added that while an NCA designation might bring economic benefits to the area, nearly anything allowed to be done on public lands could bring similar benefits.

“Any community that wants to promote its public lands can bring those benefits,” she said. “It is not just an NCA designation.”

McAllister said that a management plan for Gold Butte has already been funded and is currently in progress.

“We should let that plan go forward,” she said. “Let it be developed locally. Let it continue while it is working.”

Mesquite city council member, Kraig Hafen said that Mayor Mark Weir and the council are in the process of bringing local stakeholders together to find common ground and develop a plan for Gold Butte.

“We’re in the process of doing what you said about bringing it back to the local level,” he said. “We hope that can be honored without everybody trying to one-up the other. I hope that everyone heard your opening statements, and we’re going to take it to heart. Let’s get a commonsense approach and do what’s best for Gold Butte, not what’s best for me, or best for somebody else. Let’s do what’s best for Gold Butte.”

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