Mason Valley News
By: JIM SANFORD
SPECIAL TO THE MVN
March 7, 2008

Ask public not to fear wilderness process, point to growth issues in 3 communities, promise to come here personally later on.

U.S. Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and John Ensign (R-NV) have stressed their experience with other Nevada lands bills while working "together", asked the public not to fear the wilderness process, offered reassurances over the need for public input, pointed to growth issue requests from Hawthorne, Fernley and Dayton, and pledged open meetings -- eventually with them in attendance personally.

"Sen. Ensign and I work on many things, although we don't get a lot of credit for it, together. Things that relate to Nevada. We've been doing it now for 7 years," began Sen. Reid on a teleconference call with the media in Fallon, Yerington and Hawthorne on Wednesday.

The senior senator added, "One of the things we have worked on and we've had a lot of success is public lands bills. With the State of Nevada being 87-percent owned by the federal government, one of our obligations is to do what we can to do things for people in Nevada with these lands bills.

"We have done it county-by-county. We have had two successful bills in Clark County where they have worked out extremely well. We've had a good one in Lincoln County and an exceptionally good one in White Pine County.

"And, we've been looking around to do some other lands bills"»We find that these issues are issues a lot of people are afraid of."

Sen. Reid stressed that the two Nevada senators "are not for jamming anything down people's throats. We have had our staffs really reach out to people within the communities to get their feelings on what they feel about these bills. I would simply say, I don't want people to be afraid of wilderness. If it's something at the end of the day of discussion you don't like, that's fine.

"Sen. Ensign and I are not out for doing big pieces of wilderness if you don't want them. One of the reasons we have been able to such a good job on these bills the past seven years is that he represents a different part of the communities than I do; and as a result of that every bill we've had he doesn't get what he wants, I don't get what I want. It's always a compromise," he added.

In terms of growth, Sen. Reid said they have heard from a number of communities like Fernley, Dayton and Hawthorne about their interests in acquiring new lands for private and public development. Mineral County has identified a ranch in Whiskey Flats they would like to acquire to help that county with future water needs.

"So we've got lots of competing interests here," he said.

Sen. Ensign added comments: "I think what Sen. Reid was trying to emphasize to people is don't be afraid to start the process because it doesn't mean that the process is going to be completed if the local people don't want it."

"We want people all over the State of Nevada in every county because of the situation where close to 90-percent of our land is owned or controlled by the federal government"»we want folks to have plans to manage the lands, to allow for more private development. That has involved wilderness areas in every county we've done so far. If that's unacceptable to a county, then that's just the way it's going to be. We'll accept that.

The senator pointed to "so many positive things that have come out these lands bill for the individual county," adding, "we want people to take a very hard look at doing them because they've improved the quality of life."

Sen. Ensign said that in the three counties where lands bills have been done so far, residents in each of those counties have "greatly benefitted through quality of life issues."

"So, that's all we want to do. But we want to try to improve people's quality of life in Mineral and Lyon county and other counties around our state.

When the lands bill proposals for Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties were done, the senators stressed public hearings and town hall meetings were conducted and in each case congressional staff comes out for preliminary negotiations. "Then we come out and we actually answer the questions," said Sen. Ensign.

"And I remember specifically when we did both Lincoln and White Pine counties, there were a lot of local objections to individual parts of the bill. And when we heard those, we went back and we fixed them. We came back with what we thought was a better bill. But if we wouldn't have gone through the process, if we wouldn't have had local people sitting down and trying work out something for the betterment of their communities, we would have never got to the point where we are," Sen. Ensign concluded.

Sen. Reid concluded the call: "Our staffs will be out there and we'll be out at the appropriate time."