With a new Congress in place, the Central Wasatch Commission will pursue legislation to get a federal designation for the mountain are overlooking the Salt Lake Valley.
KPCW got an update from Chris Robinson, the Summit County representative on the commission.
Robinson said it is a high priority for the group to get approval for a Central Wasatch Conservation and Recreation Area.
“There were four land trades that would have been authorized in the designation as well. I say there were four because there’s been some problems with Alta ski resort. Some of the conditions, they put on in the Mountain Accord in the actual written document for participating involved rights. They wanted to connect into Big Cottonwood Canyon and to expand ski terrain and some of those things weren’t able to be done. The Central Wasatch Commission in the draft legislation has tried to hold them harmless. They’ve been carved out basically of the land exchanges and some of the other benefits. That is a work in process trying to see if we can solve that impasse.”
The plan is working out land trades with three ski resorts—Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude.
Robinson said it’s likely they will get Congressman John Curtis to sponsor the legislation. An earlier version, sponsored by Jason Chaffetz, didn’t get through Congress in 2016.
“There was a last-minute effort to try to, a very low probability effort, to get this piece of legislation tacked on to the lands package at the end of last year. Senator Lee blocked that land package from being part of a continuing resolution. It didn’t happen last year, none of the land’s bills did. Now they’re looking to the new congress and the legislature has, a few legislators have wanted to get involved that are proponents of the state getting more involved in public lands. So that’s an issue we’re going to be dealing with and try to convince the legislature to let the consensus process we use to get to this point not be something they want to remake in their own image.”
