Since the great report from a fellow tweets on Utah I thought you might want
to know that the Bear River National Wildlife Refuge is under a major threat
to its very existence.

State Has Eyes for Bear River Refuge
Thursday, June 8, 2000


BY GLEN WARCHOL
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

A gambit by the Utah Attorney General's Office to win state ownership of
much of the federal Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge has environmentalists
concerned.
"The state would love to dry up the Great Salt Lake wetlands to provide
water for lawns in Salt Lake," said Zach Frankel, a spokesman for the Utah
Rivers Council.
Frankel argues that turning ownership of the sprawling wetland sanctuary
west of Brigham City over to the state would be an important step toward
building a dam upstream on the Bear River. The Rivers Council fears the dam
and resulting reservoir would destroy wetlands, farms and the Shoshone
Nation's burial grounds.
Utah Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyden notified the U.S.
secretary of the Interior in April that Utah will file suit if necessary to
win control of all land below the Great Salt Lake's "meander line," a line
surveyors determined to be the normal lake high water level.
If negotiations with the federal government fail, Boyden said suit would
be filed in October.
Though the state has controlled the Great Salt Lake's shoreline below
the meander line since the 1960s, the question of the Bear River National
Bird Refuge, which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Game DepartmentFish
and Wildlife Service, was never resolved. Upward of 80 percent of the refuge
is below the meander line.
"We need to correct that so the federal government knows what is their
property and we know what is ours," Boyden said.
Boyden maintains the land exchange would not affect the status of the
refuge -- which he said would be leased back to the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Nor, said Boyden, would the acquisition affect Bear River dam
development. "This hasn't got anything to do with water development," he
said. "This is an issue of sovereign [state] lands."
"I'm not accusing them of trying to build the Bear River dam," Frankel
said. "But I think it's naive. It's clear the state of Utah wants to develop
the Bear River. It's a thinly veiled attempt to remove [U.S.] Fish and
[Wildlife] from the discussion."
Both sides agree it will be duck hunters who will be most affected in
the short run by the land deal. Several duck clubs are located on public
lands below the meander line.
The state would likely evict them with some compensation, Boyden said.
"I have a problem with the privileged sitting out in the middle of a federal
game preserve."
"When duck hunters hear about this, they are going to go ballistic,"
Frankel said.

Martha Jordan
marthaj at swansociety.org
www.swansociety.org