San Juan County official named senior adviser on lands policy

Published: Sunday, March 27, 2005 8:57 p.m. MST
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Lynn Stevens, chairman of the San Juan County Commission, has been named a senior adviser on public lands policy for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. The new position is intended to give Utah a voice with federal agencies such as the Park Service, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

Huntsman's office announced Stevens' appointment as the coordinator of public lands policy Friday. He will assume his new post on May 15.

Stevens will consolidate disparate functions in the governor's office, the Attorney General's office, the Utah Natural Resources Department and the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.

"If we don't speak to each other, we get inconsistent positions taken by the state," said state Rural Affairs Coordinator Gayle McKeachnie. "It will be the same people doing basically the same work, but now they will have a boss to coordinate their work so they are speaking to each other."

Stevens' office will deal with such issues as gaining local control of roads crossing federal lands.

A coalition of businesses, environmental groups and others said they will place advertisements in Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News criticizing state efforts to "turn dirt trails across scenic public lands into highways."

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Stevens served as a U.S. Army officer for 33 years before retiring from the Army as a major general, then became vice president of precision weapons programs for Northrop Grumman Corp. in California.

He was appointed to Outdoor Recreations and Economic Ecosystems Task Force, a panel set up by former Gov. Mike Leavitt, continued by his successor Gov. Olene Walker and now Huntsman.

Stevens also serves as co-chairman of the State RS2477 project — the Civil War-era law Utah is using in a bid to legitimize historic makeshift roads built across federal lands.

Stevens cited that law, repealed in 1976, when he led a Jeep rally through Arch Canyon last year. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance protested the rally, saying it caused erosion, tore up vegetation and dumped sediment in washes.

"Because Utah is so dependent upon effective interaction with the federal government it is vitally important to have someone as qualified as Lynn Stevens coordinating public lands policy for the state," Huntsman said in a prepared statement.

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