Babbitt Gets Earful Of Advice
From Locals On Colorado Scheme

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. —(AP)— Residents of western Colorado on Friday urged Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to make no significant changes in the federal Bureau of Land Management's operations on the tens of thousands of acres of public land west of Colorado National Monument.

``I would like for you to be the first Secretary of the Interior to recognize that the Bureau of Land Management is in fact capable of managing the land and that we don't need to transfer that land,'' said Moffat County commissioner T. Wright Dickinson.

The comments came at a public hearing set up by Babbitt on the future of about 70,000 acres in the region, including Devils Canyon and Black Ridge, both of which are made up mainly of red rock and sandstone canyons near the monument's western border.

``I'm here worrying about the next seven generations,'' Babbitt said. He said he called the meeting to discuss the situation because of concerns the land, some of which is eligible for wilderness designation, could be sold.

``It's not going to happen on my watch. But before my time, there was Interior Secretary James Watt, who favored selling off BLM lands,'' Babbitt said.

But speakers at the hearing favored the BLM's current operations.

Warren Gore, a grazing permittee in the wildlife study area in question, told Babbitt, ``To consider turning this over to the Park Service really flies in the face of the citizens' input and the grassroots input you championed when you were here in '94, and we all bought into that.''

(Surely by now everyone has figured out that, to the Clintonistas, "citizen input" translates to "let the hayseeds blow off steam, round-file it, and then get on with what we were going to do in the first place." — Ed.)

Opponents of any changes noted there already is a major telecommunications center in the area that could be transferred to National Park Service jurisdiction, as well as grazing operations.

A representative of a Grand Junction mountain biking organization also said he was concerned about ``the possibility of following a trail of Winnebagos and disposable diapers.''

Babbitt suggested a compromise in which he would recommend to the president ``permanent protection for this area and that it be administered by the BLM in accordance with this plan, as a national monument.''

A spokesman for Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., also issued a statement urging the status quo.

``Given the Secretary's propensity to advise the president to bypass Congress and invoke the Antiquities Act, we certainly don't agreed with that procedure,'' said James Doyle, Campbell's communications director. '' We hope that he will advise working with Congress rather than acting unilaterally.''

Clinton used the act to establish the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument in Utah in 1995, and Babbitt said he would be willing, due to the public's encouragement, to advise a deferment to the U.S. Congress on the matter, rather than an action of executive order.

U.S. Representative Scott McInnis attended the meeting and praised the secretary for considering constituents' interests.

``The last thing I think we need is a repeat of the Escalante situation in Utah where, in my opinion, local input was not even solicited,'' he said.