A coalition of 53 environmental groups is calling for the federal government to spend $8 million to purchase land in Utah to better protect natural areas.
Among purchases proposed Saturday by the groups - ranging from the Wilderness Society to the Grand Canyon Trust and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance - are:- $2 million to buy private-land areas crossing the trail to Zion National Park's Kolob Arch.
Liz Boussard, coordinator of the proposals for the Wilderness Society, said that purchase "is the only way to guarantee long-term visitor access."
- $3 million to buy 14,000 acres on the north side of Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge near Brigham City.
"Rising waters of the Great Salt Lake caused real problems at this famous sanctuary a decade ago. And now that the water has receded, it makes sense to acquire this important area," said Pam Eaton, assistant Four Corners regional director for the Wilderness Society.
- $1 million to help develop a trail from Ogden to Provo along the shoreline of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville - which has been pushed by such groups as the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Weber County, Ogden and Boy and Girl Scout officials.
"The Bonneville Shoreline Trail is a prime example of forward thinking and cooperation in Utah, but it won't reach its full potential if we don't take certain steps to keep development at bay," Bous-sard said.
- $2.25 million to buy ranch land in southeast Uintah County including canyon bottomlands with streams and roads that provide access to vast amounts of other federal land.
The groups make recommendations each year for purchases from the federal government's Land and Water Conservation Fund, which receives about 80 percent of its money from offshore oil dril-ling.
Despite such annual calls, relatively little money is appropriated for land purchases each year - about $250 million of the $900 million that the fund receives annually. Since 1981, the fund has an unappropriated surplus of more than $10 billion, the groups say.
The Clinton administration has proposed $235 million in purchases from that fund next year - including some for the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and some to protect desert tortoise habitat.
"The administration should be embarrassed by that figure," said Wilderness Society President Jon Roush.
"A promise was made to the American people that the money coming into the fund would be used to protect land. . . . Under the Clinton budget, 70 percent of that promise would go unfulfilled," he said.