Congressman Rob Bishop, representing Utah’s 1st Congressional District and as a ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, was highly involved in the Act which will convey Ashley Springs from federal ownership to Uintah County’s control. Congressman Bishop discussed this and other current topics on Newstalk KVEL 104.5 FM and AM 920 on Tuesday evening. On May 19th, the BLM Vernal Field Office announced the conveyance of the Ashley Springs property to Uintah County, something that Bishop says took a major effort. “What is so frustrating to me is as logical as this is, it was very difficult… it was a major effort to try to get through Congress, which it shouldn’t be,” shared Bishop. “When we started the public lands initiative…we asked counties what kinds of things would be helpful for them and one of the things that Uintah County mentioned is this Ashley Springs because it is your watershed…Basically the federal government wasn’t doing anything with it, they weren’t watching it, weren’t protecting it, it was just theirs and so that was one of the requests that Uintah County had.” Bishop explained that even though the land had no value to the federal government entities and while it was valuable to Uintah County to protect their watershed forever, there were still people in Washington that said the federal government shouldn’t give up land for any reason, even when it is totally logical. It took a major effort to make it happen which is why Bishop says he is very proud that it is done and Uintah County will now be able to take control of its own water future and destiny. He also stated that a nice thing about the transfer is there are no limitations or restrictions. It is Uintah County’s to make decisions about. Rob Bishop is currently finishing out his 9th term as Congressman and is running as Lt. Governor with Thomas Wright for Utah Governor. The entire interview with Congressman Bishop is available here : https://basinnow.com/podcast.php?id=217&title=Rep.+Rob+Bishop+-+BLM-Uintah+Co.+Ashley+Springs+Land+Transfer
