By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Before the Senate adjourned for the year, it gave final
passage to six major Utah land bills.
Those bills, which then went to President Bush for
signature, included one of great interest to local
communities and the residents of those communities.
The measure slightly altered the boundaries of the Mount
Nebo Wilderness Area to allow local water companies owned by
communities in East Juab County to bring in machinery to
repair pipelines and springs.
Juab County Commissioners have been fighting to get the
bill onto the Senate floor after it was passed, last spring,
in the House where it was sponsored by Jim Hansen.
The bill was picked up on the Senate side by Senator Bob
Bennett but floundered there in a sub-committee where it was
sent for review by senators.
A visit, and many phone calls, were needed in order to
get the bill out of committee.
Another bill which Juab County Commissioners have been
opposing also passed in the Senate. The bill could allow the
Central Utah Project to divert soon-to-be-developed water
that was originally intended for rural Juab and southern
Utah counties to Salt Lake County.
The move was opposed by commissioners and by some farm
groups.
Other legislation which passed were:
A bill authorizing $500,000 to buy land with newly
discovered, highly detailed dinosaur tracks in St. George,
to help that city better protect them.
A bill authorizing $15 million to help build a new
Natural History Museum at the University of Utah.
A bill to build a new visitor center at Timpanogos Cave
National Monument.
A bill to create the "Jim Hansen Shoshone National
Trail," a 337-mile system of off-road-vehicle trails in
northern Utah named after retiring Rep. Jim Hansen,
R-Utah.
However, many other major Utah bills appeared dead for
the year.
Among those are a controversial land swap in the San
Rafael Swell that federal appraisers said would give Utah an
unfair $116 million windfall.
A bill to allow Wendover to move into Nevada and merge
with West Wendover.
A bill to sell to the LDS Church Martin's Cove, the
Wyoming site of an 1856 pioneer disaster.
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