Citizens for Dixie

Legislature to Vote on Lake Powell Funding Friday February 17

christi — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:45:15 +0000

Water Project Earmark that Would Limit Education Funding To Be Considered on Utah Educator Day

Meeting Scheduled Friday February 17, 2012 8:00 am Utah State Capitol Room 445

Salt Lake City, UT – HB 174 would earmark 15% of future sales tax growth for water projects including the controversial Lake Powell Pipeline. This earmark would limit funding for public education, higher education, law enforcement and health services. Supporters of the bill suggest Washington County is “running out of water” despite the fact that this county has the highest water use in the U.S. Speculative growth predictions and continued wasteful water use are the foundations for this $2 billion project that benefits only 5% of the states population.

Friday is also Utah Educator day at the capitol. HB 174 would affect future funding for an already strained public education system. Many Washington County oppose this earmark. According to Christi Nuffer, Director of Citizens for Dixie’s Future, “Our schools are already operating on limited funding; teachers consistently have to look for creative ways to stretch their resources. Surprisingly, Washington County water users are not being asked to do the same. This bill suggests that facilitating water waste in one corner of the state takes priority over our entire public education system”

HB 174 is estimated to siphon $72 million in the first year of enactment. These are dollars that will be taken out of consideration for future public service budgets. Water projects already receive subsidies from property tax collections. In Washington County, over 50% of total revenues come from property taxes. This existing tax subsidy helps keep water rates in Washington County artificially low and encourages continued waste. Earmarking sales tax growth for the Lake Powell Pipeline allows water users in Washington County to continue to enjoy some of the least expensive water in the west, while public services take a direct hit.

Who Should You Contact About The Lake Powell Pipeline?

christi — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:27:09 +0000

The Lake Powell Pipeline is awaiting funding from the State Legislature. Let your Legislator know you want to have a voice in this multi-billion dollar decision. Copy the link below to your browser to find your representative.

http://le.utah.gov/GIS/findDistrict.jsp

Lake Powell Pipeline: Can You Afford It?

christi — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:41:58 +0000

Citizens for Dixies Future Insert_Final

Public Hearing on Bluff Street Freeway February 15th!

christi — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:49:22 +0000

Bluff Street Freeway

Lake Powell Pipeline Modified Draft Study Report Meetings

christi — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:10:30 +0000

Please join Citizens for Dixie’s Future February 7th and 8th for public meetings regarding the modified Lake Powell Pipeline Draft Study Reports.

The Utah Board of Water Resources (UBWR) submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) four modified draft study reports for the Lake Powell Pipeline. The four study reports were modified to consider natural gas to power the pumps of the pipeline. The modified draft reports are for air quality, noise, socioeconomics, and visual resources. The public has an opportunity to comment on these studies. These studies will be used as the basis for getting FERC’s hydropower License and used for the upcoming Draft Environmental Impact Statement due out in a year.

Meetings:

February 7, 2012,
8:30 am – 11:00 am
Lexington Hotel & Conference Center, Sabra Room
850 South Bluff Street
St. George, Utah

February 8, 2012,
8:30 am – 11:00 am Suite B
250 North 1950 West
Salt Lake City, Utah

CDF Comments on UDOT Proposed Study

christi — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:09:29 +0000

CDF Comments on UDOT Proposed Study

Citizens for Dixie has a new website

admin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:31:22 +0000

Citizens for Dixie is pleased to announce that we have launched our new website. We had a custom Utah web design company called Innovation Simple build the website on a custom content management system along with blogging capabilities.

We have updated the website to make it easier to use and to view articles and information regarding Southern Utah. We will continue to improve our services in order to better serve our readers. Please tell us what you would like to see on our new website by leaving a comment or suggestion below.

Thank you for visiting our new website!

Western values

admin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:30:49 +0000

Republicans say they’re speaking for Westerners when fighting wildlands policies, but they need
to look at the actual views of those in the West.
By Walter E. Hecox and Mark Barna
Posted: 04/17/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Last month, Republican lawmakers participated in hearings in Washington with U.S. Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Management officials on BLM’s new “wild lands” policy.
The hearings were especially pertinent for residents of the Western states because BLM owns
and manages a whopping 264 million acres in the West. In Colorado, 8.3 million acres is BLM
land.
House Republicans are concerned that the new policy, ordered by Secretary of the Interior Ken
Salazar, a former Colorado senator and attorney general, will further cripple the West’s economy
and eliminate jobs by increasing restrictions on public land use for businesses.
During the hearings, some Republicans said they were carrying out the will of Westerners by
saving jobs through reducing environmental restrictions and demanding that more public land be
opened for mining, timber and oil companies.
Yet a recent poll released by the State of the Rockies Project at Colorado College in Colorado
Springs suggests that when it comes to conservation many House Republicans are out of sync
with Colorado residents and other Westerners.
The new BLM policy designates “appropriate” federal land to be managed as “wild lands.” BLM
collaborates with the public to determine how the land should be used, BLM director Robert
Abbey said at the unveiling of the policy last December.
“Wild lands” would allow recreation activities like biking as well as limited fencing and water
catchment facilities for ranchers, which are not allowed on land designated as “wilderness,”
Abbey said.
Some Colorado elected officials, such as Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, support Salazar’s order.
But other Western politicians, like Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., are calling the policy part of
an ongoing “war on the West.”
Rehberg introduced a bill in March that takes away the Obama administration’s ability to
designate wild lands without approval from Congress. Rehberg said in a statement that he’s tired
of the federal government assuming it knows better what to do with public lands than “the folks
who live and work the land.”
But what do Western “folks” really think about environmental regulations on oil and mining
companies? And do they believe that environmental laws are “killing” Western jobs, as many
conservative Republicans contend?
For years the assumptions were that Westerners put jobs ahead of environmental conservation
and would support relaxing regulations for oil and mining giants.
Westerners, moreover, were suspicious of alternative energy sources. They wouldn’t support
paying extra for renewable energy or support regulations to decrease carbon emissions.
But a poll released on Feb. 23 suggests that the common assumptions about Westerners are
simply wrong.
The January 2011 “Conservation in the West” bipartisan survey polled 2,200 registered voters in
five states — Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Montana and Utah.
Among its findings:
• Seventy-seven percent of respondents believe that stringent environmental standards and a
strong economy can co-exist.
• Eighty-one percent believe environmental laws should not be relaxed for oil, gas and mining
companies.
• Three-quarters view wind and solar power as job creators and better energy sources than fossil
fuels. Respondents overwhelmingly support paying as much as $10 more a month for renewable
energy use.
Why have Westerners’ views been mischaracterized on conservation issues?
It appears to be due to the long history of partisan politics surrounding American
environmentalism.
Gifford Pinchot, a Republican who became the first head of the U.S. Forest Service in the early
20th century, developed the notion of sustainable yield as a working model of “conservation.” He
called for “the greatest good for the greatest number over the long run.”
Pinchot’s ideas were strongly debated by lawmakers then and remain part of partisan politics
today, typically in the guise of issues involving federal land use and climate change.
The rocky relationship between politics and conservation ratcheted up a notch in the 1980s
during the Reagan administration. Conservative Republicans opposed the new environmental regulations imposed on mining and oil giants, and questioned why the federal government, rather
than the states, owned and managed hundreds of millions of acres of public land.
Those themes returned in 2001 in the form of the Bush administration’s Energy Task Force,
which helped curb environmental restrictions for oil giants and mining companies in an effort to
create jobs — another example of what many call the “politicization” of land management.
Last September, the Republican-sponsored Senate and Congressional Western Caucuses’ “War
on Western Jobs” report argued that President Obama’s “job-killing” policy of taxing energy use
would skyrocket electricity rates. The report further stated that the federal government restricted
“access to America’s vast reserves of affordable American oil and natural gas” and was “overregulating coal.”
The U.S. economy continues to sputter, and the national jobless rate remains high. In Colorado,
unemployment in February was 9.3 percent, the highest rate the state has experienced since
record-keeping began in 1976.
The high rate of joblessness and heated political rhetoric about Western jobs disappearing
suggest that Westerners should be furious over conservationism. Moreover, it would seem likely
that they’d embrace fossil fuels rather than solar and wind power, which still need to overcome
reliability issues and typically are more expensive than traditional energy sources.
But the “Conservation in the West” study reveals that’s not the case.
Government efforts such as the Energy Task Force and partisan reports like the “War on Western
Jobs” are out of sync with what Rocky Mountain residents believe and want when it comes to the
environment.
Walter E. Hecox, left, is faculty director of the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project.
Mark Barna is a State of the Rockies Project writer.

Lake Powell Pipeline Environmental Studies Continue

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:30:26 +0000

The State of Utah’s 2011, Initial Draft Study Reports of Utah Board of Water Resources, for the Lake Powell Pipeline (LPP) project were submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and released for public comment March 11, 2011.

After two years of study by the State of Utah’s, Board of Water Resources (UBWR) the public had the opportunity to comment on their draft study reports. These draft study reports included detailed information on the first 22 of the 23 environmental issues. The final draft study report #23, the Ethnographic Study, is expected to be available this summer for comment.

After this comment period the UBWR or FERC may adjust the study report and may require the UBWR to provide more information for the studies before they will consider them to be complete. The study reports will be used as the basis for the alternatives in Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). FERC is the lead agency and will approve the hydropower portion of the project. The Bureau of Reclamation will approve the water rights being used out of Lake Powell. The Department of Interior agencies and Bureau of Land Management will approve the right-of-way across federal land for the LPP.

The LPP environmental review is in two phases:

The first phase started in 2008 gathering information needed to get a preliminary hydro power permit from the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) through its Integrated Licensing Process (ILP). Citizens for Dixie’s Future has been commenting since 2008 on what should be included in the environmental studies.

Phase two of the process starts after FERC approves the UBWR’s draft study reports. Then FERC will hire a contractor to complete a draft EIS. This will be another two year process.

CDF’s comments on draft study reports. (Here)

Climate Change and its Impact on the Colorado River

Attachment (“A”) (Here)

Our concerns about the Lake Powell Pipeline studies include: (read more here……)

Next Steps

During this planning phase, the UBWR will be reviewing all the draft study report comments to determine whether there is a need to expand or modify the draft study reports. If there is a dispute among agencies FERC will decide what is included in the final studies used as the basis for the alternatives in the draft EIS.