This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I attended a recent Salt Lake County Council meeting where members of the council listened to public comment for two hours regarding the Central Wasatch Commission (CWC). This amount of time for one topic is extremely rare at a public meeting.
Criticism of the CWC and its predecessor, Mountain Accord, was made by folks who have chosen to ignore the Mountain Accord until its final days. The accord has taken three years of debate, dialogue and compromise to reach an agreement and consensus by ski resorts, environmental and recreation groups, municipalities and property owners. In addition to these stakeholders, the Mountain Accord held open houses and informational sessions throughout the valley resulting in thousands of comments from individuals along the Wasatch Front, across the state and even nationally. Sadly, the folks now condemning the accord are making false claims regarding lack of transparency or wrongly asserting they were shut out of the process.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In my 30-year involvement with planning in the Wasatch, the Mountain Accord is the most comprehensive planning effort I've experienced with so many diverse interests joining in dialogue and donating thousands of hours to find solutions to these decades-old conflicts. I attended at least 10 meetings of the environmental, recreation and transportation groups. In the environmental working group, there was overwhelming agreement that every inch of undeveloped watershed should be protected. I attended two executive committee meetings and was allowed to speak, despite the fact that I was not formally invited to executive committee meetings.
I witnessed others, even the most critical opponents of the accord, given the same opportunities to speak and treated with the same respect. The Mountain Accord was a well-publicized, transparent process open to any members of the public. The culmination, and an example of the compromises achieved, was the CEO of Snowbird and the director of Save Our Canyons sitting next to each other at a House Natural Resources Committee, both urging the passage of a Central Wasatch National Conservation and Recreation Area Act.
The Wasatch Mountains have seen many well-intentioned visioning and planning documents, Wasatch Canyons Tomorrow, Wasatch Canyons Master Plan, Cottonwood Canyons Transportation Plan, to name a few. What separates the Mountain Accord is that it's joined by a mechanism for implementing the agreed-upon protections for the watershed, wildlife habitat, improved trail access and transportation options: The Central Wasatch Commission. The commission will be joined by a stakeholder council which will ensure that all interests, from property owners to recreation advocates, are represented.
The Central Wasatch Commission fulfills a critical need to provide coordinated management and protection for the Wasatch Mountains. These mountains might be some of the most fought over public and private lands in the country. Those of us who have been embroiled in this fighting for decades have been given hope through the Accord process that these issues will be resolved. We look forward to not just the end of these long-standing conflicts, but to the more effective planning and management resulting from this process.
I fear that, without the Central Wasatch Commission, much of the consensus building, momentum and compromise gained by the accord process will be lost. Decades of conflict in the canyons boil down to a single choice: Should the Central Wasatch Commission fail, those interested in developing the canyons will be rewarded. However, the success of the commission will result in further protections to the environment, the watershed, and recreation access. These are goals which many of us have been working towards for decades.
Howie Garber, M.D., is a board member of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. He is a nature photographer and has participated in planning in the Wasatch Mountains for many years.