SOUTHWEST UTAH PLANNING AUTHORITIES COUNCIL (SUPAC)

Minutes of May 9, 1995 Meeting

** denotes action items

1. The Southwest Utah Planning Authorities Council (SUPAC) met on Tuesday, May 9, 1995, at 9:00 a.m. at the Federal Interagency Building in St. George, Utah. Those in attendance are listed on the rosters attached as Appendix A to these minutes.
   
   
2. Dane Leavitt, vice-chairman conducted the meeting. He welcomed those present. He excused Rick Mayfield, Ted Stewart and Brad Barber. Kathleen Clarke is here for Ted Stewart.
   
   
3. The minutes of the meeting of March 14, 1995, were reviewed by the council. The following two corrections were noted. Page 3, paragraph 3, 3rd line, "an alternative that needs to be looked at," rather than "out" and on Page 7, 4th paragraph, 1st line, "also used Boyle Engineering to do a feasibility and cost study of the proposed Lake Powell pipeline" rather than "sued". With those corrections noted John Willie moved to approve the minutes. Roger Holland seconded the motion and all voted aye.
   
   
4. *Dane said that he will have Brad Barber mail out updated planning calendars to the SUPAC council as he is unable to attend today. Kathy Clarke said one calendaring item she would like to make everyone aware of is the Utah Fire Forum which will be held on May 16 at 8:30 a.m. at Utah Valley College. This is an interagency effort to better manage fire management resources. Also, the Governor's Ninth Annual State Planning Forum will be Thursday, June 8 at University Park Hotel at 8:30 a.m. Mat Millenbach said the Dixie RMP that was planned to be released this month probably will not be released until July or August. Anyone that has additional planning items that should be calendared should contact Brad Barber.
   
   
5. Dane reported that the Army Corp of Engineers and the Paiute Indian Tribe had not been at the last meeting to reaffirm their participation in SUPAC and neither one had responded to a written request to do so. Ken Esplin did reaffirm for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It was unanimously agreed by the council that they would welcome either of them back at any time. [Note: Since the meeting both the Army Corp of Engineers and the Paiute Indian Tribe sent letters reaffirming participation in SUPAC - Dane Leavitt 7-10-95.]
   
   
6. Ken Sizemore, Five County Association of Governments, gave the financial report for John Williams who was attending meetings out of state. The revenues received to date are $2,273. Expenses including refreshments, rental space of commercial facilities and air fare for Roger Holland to go to Salt Lake City total $780, leaving a balance of $1,243. Dane said he would propose setting a smaller level of fee for members of SUPAC for this year. Last year council members were assessed $125 and those that wanted to be on mailing list were charged $15. Roger Holland moved that the assessment to council members be reduced to cover needs. Cary Peterson amended Roger's motion moving to assess $60 to members and continue the $15 charge to those on mailing list. Roger withdrew his motion and seconded this motion. All voted aye.. *Dane will make sure that invoices are sent out for the $60 assessment to members and $15 to those on the mailing list.
   
   
7. The vice chairman said that on next month's agenda he will begin using beginning and ending times for the agenda items rather than just the ending times as that has caused some confusion.
   
   
8. The next items on the agenda dealt with Wild and Scenic River Items. The first item covered was a review of the unified criteria. Mat Millenbach distributed draft copies of the criteria. He cautioned that this is still within internal review among the federal agencies. This has not yet been put out for public comment but will be soon. He reviewed the various parts of the document. The first pages are an introduction of the review process and then it gets into the eligibility criteria. It also includes a description of outstandingly remarkable values (they have to be river related and regionally significant). It proposes to use as criteria for regional significance five different regions. He reviewed the five proposed ecoregions. The idea of the study is take a look at a region and then reach an assessment of what is regionally significant and determine if the features within the region are rare, unique or exemplary. Page 6 describes agency coordination. Page 7 gets into suitability phase which is the first phase of study. The last three pages are sample ORV (outstandingly remarkable values) rating factors such as scenic, recreational, geological, fish, wildlife, historical, cultural and ecological and how you apply those factors. This will be sent out for more formal review soon. *This will be put on July' SUPAC agenda for review. *Dane will provide address list or labels to BLM so that they can provide copies to SUPAC membership.
   Item 2) under Wild and Scenic River items on the agenda was to review draft of unified process proposal. Mat Millenbach says they haven't made too much progress on this but he would like to explain the concept of resource advisory councils. The BLM has been meeting with the Governor's staff to come up with a proposal on this resource advisory council concept. There are three models to choose from. They are using Model C. What they are suggesting to Governor is one resource advisory council (RAC) statewide. The RAC would have 15 members balanced among three interest groups and elected officials: commodity users which would include ranchers and miners, environmental groups and sportsmen groups. There are five districts and so there could be five subgroups, each having membership from the statewide group. One of their biggest jobs would be to look at standards and regulations for grazing. These five local RAC's could be used in the wild and scenic process. These are chartered councils within the purview of the FACA. FACA gives the ability to structure these committees and be in compliance with the law without having to worry about FACA compliance. He said that the BLM feels like there is a lot of value in this concept. The subgroup RAC's can be any size up to 15 but need to be balanced.

   The next item of discussion under Wild and Scenic Rivers was the Study Funding Update. Jeannine Holt of Senator Hatch's office said they are waiting for some direction as to what study scenario will be used but their report given last time is still accurate which is that funding is tight but they are willing to go to bat once it is decided if we want to pursue statewide or regional study. Don Falvey said their there preference is a statewide study but the funding was a big consideration with this. Mat Millenbach said that would be their first choice and their second choice would be for Virgin basin study. Jeannine said a letter from each agency would be helpful.

   There was additional discussion of the possibility of using a council made up of staff and people already on staffs which wouldn't require so much funding. Hugh Thompson said that they are a shrinking agency and if we want a statewide process it would take independent funding. Without funding for 5d study he doesn't feel like it would happen. Matt Millenbach and Don Falvey said they agreed with this. There was some discussion of a 5a study as compared to a 5d study. Hugh Thompson said he thought this group had previously recommended 5d study. Ron Thompson stated that if we can't find funding the State could create a task force with the different stakeholders and do a state study. There is a provision in the act that states can do study independent of federal agencies. This is an option that we should keep in mind if we can't obtain any federal funding. Kathy Clarke asked if the federal agencies would be agreeable to this state process. Hugh Thompson indicated that his agency would have to look at the act and get legal advice on it. Mat Millenbach read a section from the wild and scenic river act regarding designation by state. It does give states the opportunity to do their own designation. Dane asked if the 5d study and trying to obtain federal funding is still the first option of the council. The consensus appeared to be that it was. Ron Thompson said he still supports that approach if it is a team approach and not the three agencies alone.
   Jeannine Holt had the assignment to look at the possibility of participation by non-federal agencies in the study process and she obtained language from Robert Diblee that could be included in an appropriations bill that would be for FACA exemptions. Hugh Thompson said this proposed language could be amended easily to fit this 5d process as part of Section 204 from the "unfunded mandates reform act of 1995". This would not include the water district and some other boards or groups and so we need to go ahead with FACA exemption language. Ron Thompson said he thinks it does include an entity like WCWCD even though they are not elected officials but because they are appointed by elected officials.
   Dane Leavitt said since the consensus seems to be the statewide study and then perhaps the next step is the drafting of a bill. Dane suggested getting the three federal agencies, Ron Thompson and Kathy Clarke together at lunch or a break and working on a draft that we could give to the congressional delegation today. *We will have an update on this legislation that is drafted today at the next meeting.

   *Dane asked Ron Thompson to have Barbara Hjelle prepare a report on state options for wild and scenic river and put on agenda for the next meeting.

   Mike Schwinn from the Army Corp of Engineers joined the meeting and was welcomed. Dane Leavitt asked him if the Corp. of Army Engineers wanted to reaffirm their participation in SUPAC. He said yes and reaffirmed their participation.
   After a short break, the meeting resumed and a copy of a draft of a bill prepared during the break was passed out for review.

9. The Spiendace Habitat Agreement Report was covered next by Henry Maddux, U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He reported that on April 11, 1995, the Virgin Spinedace Conservation Agreement and Strategy was signed by the participatory agencies, BLM for Arizona, National Park Service, Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resource, the Washington County Water Conservancy District, BLM for Utah, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The only signatory that didn't sign at that time was Arizona Game and Fish Department and they will be signing it soon. The water district has already committed to put water below the QC pipeline diversion. They have prepared a withdrawal notice of listing and critical habitat. It has completed the regulatory review and is now being reviewed by the solicitor. There has been a recision in listing funding which says they are not allowed to work on listing activity, so he hopes Washington will keep it moving. Mollie Beattie applauded Utah in this action. They are now moving on to the Virgin River Management Plan and working on that with the Water District and others.
10. The next item on the agenda was the State of Utah's Approach to Ecosystem Management by Kathleen Clarke of the Dept. of Natural Resources. The State has recognized the need for an interagency forum similar to SUPAC to address conflicts and data sharing coordination. She passed out a proposal entitled "Proposal for Establishment of a Utah Natural Resources Coordinating Council." Three organizations would be put together into this Utah Natural Resources Coordinating Council. They would be the Federal/State Breakfast Group, Utah Ecosystem Council (name will be changed), Coordinated Resource Management Executive Council. The council will have two to three day long meetings during the year and monthly breakfast meetings (3rd Tuesday of month, 7:30 A.M., Lamb's Cafe on Main Street in Salt Lake City). They will set their calendar for the year at the next meeting. The chairman will be the executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources with a rotating vice-chairman. They see this group as one that can support SUPAC. SUPAC has also provided a pattern for this council. The proposal provides for the appointment of advisory teams to advise and assist the council as to specific issues, topics, problems, controversies or opportunities. A standing technical advisory team will be formed for data sharing and coordinating technological transfers. This committee will interact with the Interagency Natural Resource and Environmental Analysis and Synthesis Center. In April an agreement was signed which established an Interagency Natural Resource and Environmental Analysis and Synthesis Center. It is housed at Utah State and houses a data base for Northern America. She answered questions about SUPAC's role and local involvement, etc. This will not change SUPAC's role because SUPAC has a specific area of interest. John Willie expressed concern about diluting the present SUPAC council. SUPAC has had leadership from all agencies and if these agency leaders are involved in to many councils or group they won't be able to attend them all and without their participation SUPAC's usefulness and purpose would not exist
11. There was a review of the language of the proposed appropriation bill for the wild and scenic river study. Dane asked for concerns or suggested revisions. Mat Millenbach said that it looks good but they will have to have their legislative people review it and then get back to Jeannine Holt with any changes. Hugh Thompson and Don Falvey said they would do the same. Dane asked if anyone would feel uncomfortable sending letters to the five members of the Utah delegation asking for support of this. Hugh Thompson made a motion that SUPAC make this recommendation in letter form rather than the individual agencies. The motion was seconded by John Willie and Kathleen Clarke and all voted aye.

    Cary Peterson questioned having BLM as lead agency. Maybe the Dept. of Agriculture would be more appropriate. Most of the state's river systems are not on BLM land, most of the headwaters are on forest lands. There was a discussion regarding BLM acting as lead agency. Hugh Thompson said he felt it was an administrative decision but it could go either way. The Forest Service would be willing to serve as the lead agency but the whole thing seems to fit together better with BLM as the lead agency. The three agencies would have equal say but one agency needs to be named as lead for administrative and housekeeping purposes. After further discussion Roger Holland made a motion to make the forest service the lead agency. Ron Thompson seconded the motion after which there was additional discussion. Ken Sizemore said that there could be an administrative problem with the forest service being the lead agency as they don't have state office like BLM and so which portion of the forest service would take this responsibility. Don Falvey expressed that it may not matter who takes the lead. It was previously discussed that the three agencies would take "joint lead". Whoever takes the lead may not be that significant. Hugh Thompson suggested that whoever has the lead should not determine the tone of the study or how it comes how but would be more a bookkeeper or administrative lead. Mat Millenbach suggested taking out the BLM as lead agency language and putting back in the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture. Roger Holland withdrew his motion to have forest service be lead agency. Dane said a clean copy with the discussed language revisions will be prepared at lunch and passed out after the lunch break.

12. Mat Millenbach discussed Utah BLM Reorganization. They have had a large budget cut this year so they have taken a look at their organization to see if they could cut back on size and still maintain their level of service. The BLM is split into three levels: the state office, five district offices, resource areas. He diagramed on the board the state with the five districts which are Salt Lake, Vernal, Moab, Cedar City and Richfield. The central core management functions are located in state office or district offices. The resource area offices really do the ground work. District office shave divisions of operation such as engineering, road maintenance, etc. where State office has operational divisions, public land records, maps, oil & gas leasing, etc. They are trying to take a look at central core management functions and shrink that down to try and free up resources for operating areas out in the field. They put together a study team that analyzed alternatives designed to shrink down central core management functions. They are looking at deleting some of the supervisory positions. They also took a look at some of the different organization options. The State office has four divisions: renewalable resources, minerals, administrative, support services (this is the biggest division but the one that they can touch the least without effecting work done). They will be combining administrative and support divisions - lands will move from support services to mineral division. The five district offices will be left the way they are but their subordinate structures will change a little with some offices combining in areas such as Price, Vernal and Richfield. Cedar City District will remain as it is. They will end up with 13 resources area, the same five districts and then three divisions in the state office rather than four. This will reduce employees from 600 to approximately 554 over the next two years.
    
    
13. There was a review of revisions to the proposed appropriation bill language for wild and scenic river study. Dane read the language. No one objected to the language and it was approved as follows: There is appropriated and authorized 3 million dollars ($3,000,000) jointly to the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to complete a statewide study under subsection 5d of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of the rivers within Utah. The study's purpose is to determine which rivers within Utah, if any, are eligible and suitable for inclusion by Congress in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. This study is to be completed by September 30, 1999. The appropriation is restricted and nonlapsing, carrying over the entire study period. The Bureau of Land Management shall be the fiscal administrator for this study. The Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture shall appoint the study team. The study team may procure the services of appropriate public and private agencies and institutions, and other qualified persons. Study teams appointed pursuant to this subsection shall not be subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
    
    
14. The review and discussion of draft resolutions by the topical advisory committee on the closure of the Fredonia Saw Mill was the next item on the agenda. Copies of three resolutions were passed out for review. Roger Holland said a presentation was made at the last meeting on the closure of the sawmill. Some suggestions came out of that meeting and a committee was put together to draft resolutions for transfer of the Kaibab portion of forest to Dixie National Forest, for the appeals process, and for continuing studies. Roger read the resolution regarding the transfer of the North Kaibab Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest to the Dixie National Forest. Don Falvey remarked that the federal agencies feel they should abstain from voting on this. They support the concept but would feel more comfortable abstaining from voting on this. Hugh Thompson said he understands BLM and Park Services concern but he is not uncomfortable going on record voting for this since he has been involved in the studies. Henry Maddux of U.S. Fish and Wildlife said that he should probably abstain from voting also. Howard Roper noted the Natural Resource Conservation Service should be substituted for Soil Conservation Service in the resolution language. Roger Holland moved to adopt the resolution. Kathleen Clarke seconded the motion. The voting was unanimous in favor the passage of the resolution with the federal agencies abstaining from voting with the exception of the Forest Service who also voted aye. *Dane will make sure the corrections of Soil Conservation Service's name and the abstention of the federal agencies in voting is noted in the final resolution.
    
    

    Ken Sizemore reviewed the resolution dealing with the appeals process. He reviewed the five revisions to the federal land management appeals processes on the second page of the resolution. There was general discussion of various changes and additions to language in the resolution. Hugh Thompson suggested the following changes: Paragraph 2 add the word "declined" in place of "were provided an opportunity" Paragraph 4 add the word "or deny " as follows: Federal land management agencies should not be required to expend time and funds to confirm or deny allegations made by appellants. Mat Millenbach suggested adding to Paragraph 1 some language to the effect: "but the decisions which implement the plans would be subject to appeal." *Hugh Thompson said he would like to get together with Roger Holland and Ken Sizemore and work on this a little bit more. They will do this and then bring back a redraft to the next SUPAC meeting in July.

15. Loyd Johnson gave a demonstration on data sharing. He showed some of the data available in the data repository. The data topical advisory group met last week and each agency was assigned to get two or three data documents that they would want to put in the catalog and they will begin collecting these. This data is set up in a folio format. He also gave a demonstration on how to query for certain topics. He also showed through Arc View how the 22 different proposals on the wilderness bill were accessible and were used by Ted Stewart, Brad Barber, and the congressional delegation. He showed how these can be overlayed and compared and how certain areas can be focused in on for more clarity and detail and for analysis. Data collection has been made easier for all of us by this data repository.

    Loyd Johnson next discussed digital ortho photo quads. He showed an example of one and what could be done with it. It is different than general aerial photography. USGS has flown the entire state and has a quad by quad representation. It is corrected for tilt, sway, swing and curvature of the earth as compared to aerial photography and the accuracy is one pixel is equal to one meter of detail.

    He has met with Washington County and Washington County Water Conservancy District and they will be partnershiping in on this for Washington County. There are four or five counties so far that are participating. Washington County will be one of the first ones in the process. These digital ortho photo quads will be a great planning tool and they can also be a base for all GIS information, roads, water, pipelines, etc. Topographic contours can be overlayed. He reviewed the costs for Washington County, as an example. They have 50 quads and the cost will be approximately $170,000 which is being partnershiped or cost shared between USGS, State, County and the Water District. $100,000 was granted by the legislature to digitize quad sheets for the State of Utah. Washington, Kane and Iron County have been given high priority on this.
    Loyd Johnson said the next thing they will be doing is to check out the Internet (world wide webb) options and the possibility of SUPAC having its own webb. *At the July meeting he will give an Internet demonstration. Don Falvey thanked Loyd for the work he is doing for SUPAC in this area.

16. The next item on the agenda was a report of Governor's Office Letter regarding the Forest service placing the North Kaibab Ranger District under the Cedar City regional office. This will be forwarded to the Governor's office with the resolution regarding this.
17. Dale Peterson of UDOT was introduced for an overview of the UDOT Planning and Funding Process. He said that UDOT needs input and that is why they want to inform SUPAC about their planning and funding. He introduced Richard Nanser, statewide planning engineer, who talked about the process used for gaining public input. He explained that they hold public involvement meetings. They summarize this information and then analyze it to see what can be done. They also get feedback from legislators. Next is the output to MPO's (Metropolitan Planning Organizations). There are three of those in the state. After the legislature there is a fiscal analysis and then they prepare a draft STIP (Statewide Transportation Improvement Program) which is made public for review and comment. Then they take all the comments they have received on the draft STIP and put them together, summarize and review and then give them to the transportation commission prior to the adoption of final STIP. The staff takes the final STIP an submits it to the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transportation Administration and then it is published. This takes a full year from the first public involvement and input until STIP is published. The STIP includes five years of projects. They are trying to improve this process and would like comments.

    Dale Peterson explained that UDOT has divided state into four regions. They want to maintain proactive approach with local government to plan for future growth and development and to better understand their processes.

    Ken Adair reported on the projects they are working on in the southern end of state The widening of SR 9 in Hurricane was just completed. By late summer they hope to advertise 2nd phase of that which would be Flora Tech to 700 West in Hurricane. Other projects on their list include bridge up SR 14 into canyon in Iron County, beautification of St. George off ramps, Kanarraville rest areas, LaVerkin Creek Bridge, bike path from Red Hills to Snow Canyon, Snow Canyon to Veyo replacing the bridge, putting in left turn lanes and widening road to Veyo, new signals for SR 18 and south St. George interchange and signal work for Cedar City. Those are projects for this year. He also reviewed projects for future years.

    Dana Meyers, Cedar City District Engineer for UDOT was introduced. He is new to that position since last July. He is glad to be a part of SUPAC. They are interested to see what SUPAC can do for UDOT and what UDOT can do for SUPAC. He explained the blue book process. This is for larger projects and it is a long process that takes five years. The orange process is for smaller projects until they can get it into blue book process. He reviewed some of the projects presently on the books.

    Grey Larkin, State Road commission spoke briefly. He said on proposed projects we need to join forces and work together because funding is very difficult and money doesn't go very far. If he can be of help in any way, please contact him.

    Dane Leavitt said that if UDOT will try and make Brad Barber aware of their planning items that they could be included on the planning calendar.

18. The following items were handled prior to the close of the meeting. *Ken Sizemore will check on having refreshments for the next meeting in the afternoon. The next meeting will be Tuesday, July 18 due to Virgin River Interior Coordinating Committee meeting in Las Vegas on the second Tuesday. Dane Leavitt reviewed agenda items for that meeting. He will send out proposed agendas. There being no further business before the council Roger Holland moved to adjourn. Dana Meier seconded the motion and all voted aye.

*ACTION LIST

1. Dane said that he will have Brad Barber mail out updated planning calendars to the SUPAC membership since he was not able to attend today's meeting.
2. Dane will make sure that invoices are sent out for the $60 assessment to members and $15 to those on the mailing list.
3. The BLM's unified criteria for Wild and Scenic River study will be put on July's SUPAC agenda for review after it is in final form. Dane will provide an address list or labels to BLM so that they can provide copies to SUPAC membership before the next meeting.
4. Dane will make sure the correction of Soil Conservation Service's name and the abstention of the federal agencies in voting is noted in the final resolution on the Kaibab Forest transfer.
5. There will be an update on the legislation regarding funding for the state wide study on wild and scenic rivers that is drafted today at the July SUPAC meeting.
6. Ron Thompson will have Barbara Hjelle prepare a report on state options for wild and scenic river study and this will be put on the agenda for the next meeting.
7. Loyd Johnson will give an Internet demonstration at July meeting.
8. Ken Sizemore will check on having refreshments for the next meeting in the afternoon.
9. Hugh Thompson, Roger Holland and Ken Sizemore will get together and work on the resolution dealing with the appeals process and bring a redraft to the SUPAC meeting in July.