Rep. Jim Hansen has filed a bill in congress to remove two wilderness study areas in Millard County's western desert from further consideration as potential wilderness. Environmentalists support both for wilderness protection.
Crown Resources Inc., a gold exploration company with headquarters in Denver, is interested in developing reserves in the King Top and Conger wilderness study areas, both Bureau of Land Management lands in the Confusion Mountains. The range is about 50 miles west of Delta.Environmentalists denounced the move, accusing Hansen of trying to jump-start the wilderness debate and to circumvent the ordinary process of discussing wilderness values.
Any activities that could leave permanent scars are banned from wilderness study areas.
Hansen, R-Utah, contacted by telephone in Washington, D.C., said he and Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, visited the region to examine its wilderness potention. Most of the region seemed not to qualify for protection, he said.
"There's roads all over the place," he said.
"I, personally, as I look at it, have a very hard time seeing where it fit the criterias as wilderness," he said. Among the wilderness criteria is "roadlessness."
Crown Resources and other s in Millard County want the region removed from the wilderness process so that mining exploration can take place, he said. "They (Crown) are very active. They are a good engineering and mining organization," he said.
Hansen said he would not have introduced the bill except for the roads, other man-made impacts to the region and the importance to the local economy posed by the mining.
"It's a pretty area I wouldn't diminish that. It's a nice area," he said. But he doesn't believe it is good enough for wildnessness.
"The sad thing is that Hansen's proposal would really devastate a really incredible area," said Rudy Lukez, chairman of the Sierra Club's Utah Chapter.
"What Jim Hansen is doing right now is circumventing the process....He's trying to get his horses out of the gate before we have a serious discussion about all of the willlderness lands in Utah."
Lukez said Hansen is considering only one value of these areas, mining, "rather than looking at all the other intrinsic natural, recreational and scenic values that go with that area."
Mike Drinkard, a geologist with Crown Resources' office in Delta, said the company has spent about $1.5 million so far in the region. Its drilling already has outlined a gold deposit in the Confusion Mountains that he believes contains about 200,000 ounces of gold.
For the region to be mined profitably, Crown Resources would have to develop more reserves nearby, he said. A mill and processing facilities would be built.
"There are a substantial number of man-made intrusions into the wilderness study area. We have documented at least 53 miles of road inside the borders," in King top alone.
The BLM recommended protecting none of the 84,8770 acres in King Top WSA or the 20,400 acres in the Conger Mountain WSA.
However, both would be designated wilderness under a bill filed by Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah.