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SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Interior Secretary says compromise is already paving the way to balanced use of public lands here in Utah. Secretary Ken Salazar stopped in Utah to hear people's ideas about preservation and recreation.
Salazar is holding listening sessions across the country. He's gathering input for the President's America's Great Outdoors Initiative and promoting compromise to get past historic battles.
Utah's public lands inspire awe, offer a wilderness playground, provide valuable resources and stir deep conflicting emotions about those diverse uses.
"We can find balance, and we can find common sense answers to problems that have been intractable for many decades." U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
Salazar listened to the people and wants to resolve divisive disputes, and work with the communities most affected by public lands policy.
"So, it's not the hand of distance from Washington, D.C., making those decisions that void what it is that you want to happen here in Utah," he said.
Salazar spoke to the Outdoor Retailers Summer Market about the connection between preservation, outdoor recreation and the economy.
Nationwide, outdoor recreation generates $730 billion and 6.5 million jobs annually. Here in Utah, that equates to $5.8 billion and 65,000 jobs.
Salazar and Gov. Gary Herbert say there's room for preservation and job creation on Utah's public lands.
"We can find balance, and we can find common sense answers to problems that have been intractable for many decades," Salazar said.
Salazar's office is working on a pilot program to resolve decades-old disputes over county rights of way on federal lands. He also touted a recent compromise in a Utah natural gas drilling project as an example of balance on public lands.
"It is really the people who live in these places who ought to have a very significant voice relative to how we move forward with the future of these public lands," he said.
Herbert says he wants to look ahead with Salazar to resolve deeply-entrenched disputes on Utah's public lands.
"It's not easy to achieve balance, but I do believe, as is being demonstrated by Secretary Salazar and this administration, working with this Republican administration in this state, that it's actually possible," Herbert said.
The governor also asked Salazar to renew a fight against a nuclear waste dump on the Goshute Indian reservation in Skull Valley. He wants Salazar to appeal a court decision that reopened the storage proposal.
Salazar told Herbert his department would study the court decision and consider an appeal.
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
