After approaching the Carbon County Commission on October 1 to address the denial of access to more than 2,400 acres of Bureau of Land Management property near the Grassy Trail Reservoir, a local citizen followed the issue and two of the three county commissioners to East Carbon City. During Tuesday’s city council session, the commissioners and city council hashed out why a public county road remains locked, blocking a large portion of “prime” recreation property.
“I will not stand by and allow my tax dollars to support a private hunting preserve for the country’s richest men,” said East Carbon’s Marcus Palacios. “Not in my back yard, and not on land that is public. I can’t understand why this isn’t an easy issue to resolve.”
Palacios has lobbied to remove the gate, which stops traffic approximately a mile below the Grassy Trail Reservoir in Whitmore Canyon, since his bid for city mayor in 2013.
According to Palacios, the gate stops citizens from accessing 2,380 acres of public land below the mountain lake and 380 acres of land above Grassy Trail.
“That is some very beautiful country and the people who live in this area should have the right to hunt and recreate there,” he said. “But instead, wealthy landowners have chosen to simply fold our public land into a private purchase. After all, who’s going to stop them?”
When the last remaining mine closed in eastern Carbon County, many of the protections and benefits they bestowed upon the communities of East Carbon and Sunnyside left with them. One such protection centered on the reservoir.
Private land owners now own most of the Bookcliff Mountains near East Carbon. It is a situation that has led to desperate predicaments for the small town. According to former city officials, the towns of East Carbon and Sunnyside were forced to purchase their own reservoir from a collection of land investors called Pentacreek in the mid-1990s.
According to Palacios, Pentacreek and a group known only as the Magnificent Seven pushed East Carbon and Sunnyside’s city leaders into a corner by ransoming the town’s water supply.
In 1998, the city’s leaders began sending letters to the Carbon County Commission asking to have the Grassy Trail Reservoir closed to the public because of the dangers posed by contaminates brought to the mountain lake by the area’s citizens.
No other municipal drinking lake in Castle Country is closed to the public and water quality standards insure that regular testing is performed on any water deemed culinary. However, because of the city’s request, the commission did lock up the reservoir by a vote of 2-1. Commissioner Bill Krompel voted to keep the lake open.
In legal documents surrounding the 1998 proceedings between Pentacreek and East Carbon City, representatives of the private land owners never accurately describe just where the gate they were requesting would be placed.
While the documents do state that gate must be placed on the access road to the dam, they only describe it’s location at near a “Y in the road.”
“If Pentacreek could have legally forced East Carbon to place that gate where they wanted, it would have been sitting at the bottom of Whitmore Canyon near the entrance to the mine’s old shop,” said Palacios. “It is illegal to dictate where a public body place a gate on a public road and that’s why the documents are vague.”
Palacios is asking that the city and commission open the gate and provide legal access to public multiple use lands.
The current commission has a strong record concerning public access and attended the Tuesday council session to lend their support.
“We want to be the best partner we can be to East Carbon,” said Commissioner John Jones. “The city needs to decide just how they want to move forward with this and let us know.”
Currently, another group of land investors, the anonymous Westridge Partners, owns much of the property once held by Pentacreek. This includes the land surrounding the Grassy Trail Reservoir.
While the East Carbon council has debated the issue of public access to their reservoir endlessly since the lake was closed, they have not gone over the other public lands which are cut off to elderly and handicapped residents by the current gate.
One of the major issues facing the council is what an open gate will do to obvious and immediate issues like fishing in the lake and camping in the area.
“I have a hard time with this because I like to know where I’m going before I start on a mission,” said East Carbon council member Barbara Robinett.
Her sentiment was shared by many in the council as they asked that city attorney Jeremy Humes investigate the matter and report back at their next session.
For Palacios the matter is more simple.
“I know that I’m responsible for fencing and locking my own property. I don’t understand why the county, our city and my tax dollars have to pay for a gate and lock up land owned by some very rich people,” he said.
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