The Grand County Council this week gave council chairman Bob Greenberg the go-ahead to prepare a formal proposal to seek federal legislation to help steer future management of Bureau of Land Management lands located in the county.

Washington County, strongly supported by conservation organizations as well as its own constituency, recently helped push similar legislation through Congress with help from Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson.

“I think it is time we start [this discussion],” council member Gene Ciarus said. “Washington County was pretty happy with what they came out with.”

Ciarus praised the role that The Nature Conservancy played in Washington County. He noted that it took the county five years to get the job done and that real progress was not made until the process became totally transparent with participation from all sides of land management issues.

“We implement,” BLM’s Canyon Country District Director Shelley Smith said when Greenberg asked for her response to the proposal. Noting that such an effort would be a political process, she said her agency’s role can be to provide information, data, maps, and the like.

“That’s a clear role we can play,” Smith said

Laura Kamala, Utah Programs Director for the Grand Canyon Trust, said the group is “very interested” in becoming involved in the discussion. Kamala offered resources from the group to pay for a neutral facilitator for the process. One potential for that task would be the Stegner Center at the University of Utah Law School, she said.

“That’s just one possible idea,” Kamala said, adding that the choice of a facilitator should be acceptable to all major partners in the process.

Greenberg said that three successful conservation bills for Utah have been enacted by Congress in the last four years. Besides Washington County, those include the Cedar Mountain Wilderness bill and the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act.

“Without legislation, there is great uncertainty as to how BLM lands in Grand County will be managed; but it is most likely that decisions will be made by interests outside of the county,” Greenberg wrote in a memo to the council.

Noting that a new administration, seemingly intent on reversing many land use management decisions of the previous administration is now in place, Greenberg wrote that pending litigation regarding oil and gas leases may mean that the status of the resource management plan recently implemented by the BLM will “likely” be determined in court.

“The county council can influence these decisions by proactively initiating a process to develop legislation resolving these issues,” Greenberg’s memo stated.

Immediately after the discussion the council entered into closed session with a BLM representative to discuss “imminent litigation.”