Hello everybody welcome to The County Seat today I'm your host Chad Booth
every now and then we get somebody that has so much information packed into
their head that we need to take an entire half hour to talk to him today is one of
those shows but this is one that you are going to stay through all the way as there
are things that touch your life whether its oil and gas for your home the water that
comes out of your tap the forests you hike in it all ties in to the State Director Mike
Styler of the Department of Natural Resources, Mike thank you for being with us
today.
Nice to be with you today, Chad.
Let's get into it you got 7 divisions within your department.
Yes, Water rights that the state engineer he oversees all the water rights in the
state. Then the division of water resources they coordinate water rights on the
Colorado River they help build projects there is the division of oil gas and mining
they permit oil and gas drilling they also permit coal mining and they cover and
take care of abandoned mines. The Utah geological survey they watch out and
report on geological hazards they do underground work looking for faults they
studies on underground water and they are involved in energy and wind power as
well they also have state paleontologist as a side note our state paleontologist had
probably found more new species of dinosaurs than anyone in the country. They
do a great job we have wildlife resources our biggest division. Our next biggest
division is state parks we have division of forestry fire and state lands and they are
the guys that put out all the fires.
So let's take few minutes and delve into the departments there are things that are
on everybody's mind and the questions all tie back to divisions within your
department of natural resources so I'm going to start with this imp getting notices
for my office property and my house a bunch of summons and notices and your
name is on them and I think am I in trouble over water rights should I be claiming
something. What is going on here?
That is an adjudication process which is a process of the courts and the state
engineer is told by the courts to do an adjudication a research of all the water
rights within an area. They are doing an area right now which is the Jordan River
Salt Lake Valley area there are over 30,000 water rights and what they do they send
notices to every titled property owner and say do you have a water right if you do
let us know it's not a gottcha thing they just want to know do you have a water
right we have a lists of water rights is our list up to date is it correct if so we need
verification from the property owner.
In response to that I have a couple shares in a canal company but I think the canal
company is handling that.
They would be.
I sign up for city water that's not a water right, that's water use.
That's right.
So who are the people that need to take this seriously and respond?
Well everyone needs to take it seriously but if you do not have a diversion on your
property out of a stream if you do not have an old well that you take water out of
you probably do not have a water right you probably get water from you city or you
may own shares in an irrigation company that is what we want to know if you do
have a well if you use it for supplemental irrigation on a big yard come and tell us
we have record of it we want to make sure that we have verification then when we
compile all of these water rights we take it to the judge and say these are the water
rights that we are aware of and you need to validate those. If you happen to have a
water right and you don't come tell us the judge may validate the list and leave
yours off. So we don't want your water right left off the list if you happen to have a
valid water right.
So while we are on the subject of water water rights for no water does not help
much we have been in a really serious drought you would not know by last week's
rains. What is going on in the water picture?
In the last week our prayers have been answered we have been hoping for a long
mild soft storm and that is what this pattern has been but our water year which has
ended October 1st I read in the paper this morning was the driest year on record
and I believe that it was a horrible winter there was some storm in the north
basically nothing in the south. I have a farm down in Delta Utah and our reservoir
started off the year at about 38% full it ended up a couple of weeks ago 4% full we
are just down to the bottom and many reservoirs in the southern end of the state
are in the same situation.
Where do you draw from?
Yuba
4% not much water skiing going on there now.
No it's pretty sad but the storms look pretty promising right now. Hopefully the
weather pattern will change this year.
So is it water resources that tries to make the most out of drought vs. times of
plenty.
Yes, water resources do the slow the flow program they encourage water
conservation they are the folks that lend money to irrigation companies that want
to line their canals and get what water they have to the end of the ditch.
I paid for all the mining in my ditch by myself. I did not know it was there.
Come and make and application and low interest loans they also pay for dam repair
we do dam safety and inspect all the dams in the state. We do not want another
Orrville. We put literally millions of dollars a year into refurbishing dams.
Great we are going to take a quick break here we will be right back with The County
Seat our conversation with Mike Styler Director of DNR. This is a great
conversation.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are talking to Mike Styler who is the head of
the department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah we have covered water
now let's turn to fire because the 2 of them do not mix. Been a really rugged fire
season and people think the forest is the forest but most of these have been
federal forest fires but they have involved state lands how is the state on their
forests managing and how are you trying to keep ahead of those fires. There have
been complaints from lots of county leaders not enough road because of the
Roadless initiative we have too much deadwood how does the state manage the
forests.
Well unfortunately the state does not have any forests but what we do we help
communities manage when they are in the urban interface with the forests we go
in and do a lot of work to fire proof communities and homes and then we have a
couple of hot shot teams that when there are fires are called out and often our fire
teams they are nomadic they start in the south where the fires might start and they
follow the fires from state to state and then get to Utah about the time the fires
break out here and then end up in California or Montana and we have some really
great and dedicated fire fighters but we work with the forest service on prescribed
burns we council with them when they want to do a prescribed burn we are
brought in and part of the team and sometimes there are differences of opinions
this year we had a very unusual year when some prescribed fires got away we had
some managed burns that were on forest service property where the forest service
said this fire is doing a lot of good let's let it burn and then a red flag situation came
up and the red flag situation allowed for the fire to get away. It may be of interest
to know on both a prescribed fire and a managed burn if the forest service has
made the call that we want to let the fire go then if it happens to get away all the
costs put in that fire are forest service costs. Now there are secondary costs like if
it messes up a communities water shed if it impacts their water of course the
community has that costs. The costs of air quality everyone puts up with that we
have had a pretty good relationship with the forest service and in most cases they
listen to us if we way the time has come to put out that fire they do and they are
even several prescribed fires they were looking at in northern Utah at the end of
the fire season and we said please do not do those the fuel moisture is so low we
wish you would not and they listen to us and they did not do those prescribed fires.
Excellent now we have a reclamation problem on your hands. Is that something
the state has to involve in?
Yes. Absolutely and we partner with the BLM and the forest service in reseeding
those areas. I met with the Governor's office this week and gave them what we
believe our share of fighting the fire deal is and the number I shared with Kristin
Cox and The Lieutenant Governor was 19.6 million dollars but of that 19.6, 6.2
million is going to go for seed and we are geared up and ready to start getting seat
on as fast as we can and in fact we like to put seed on snow so on some of these
areas we will be flying in seed right on top of the snow.
That works?
Yes that works very well. The other out in Box Elder County where more of a low
altitude area where we really need to draw a chain across the seed and we will be
doing that in those lower BLM areas but in the higher areas it works great to put
the seed right on the snow.
Okay while we are on the subject of reclamation let's move onto to oil and gas
mines. They are kind of in competition with BLM on the permitting side yet there is
always that comparison why can't we get an oil drilling permit on state land in 60
days and it takes 5 years with federal blm but on the reclamation side you are
across the board explain that.
We have an agreement with the coal mining interests and with the bureau of mines
that we have primacy over permitting coal mines so when the coal mine shuts
down we will do the reclamation of course the mines sign a bond they end up
paying for the costs of it but we contract and help do all of the reclamation after a
big mining coal mining project or a hard rock mining effort we will go out and if
need be call on the bond and reclaim that I been out on the west desert and have
seen areas that were reseeded and the seed did not take so they we asked the
mine company to reseed again and finally after about 2 or 3 times it looks really
good where the reseeding has been done.
Alton coal mine they have some areas that they are finished with that they have
reclaimed have you been back on some of that reclaimed land?
In fact, the Alton coal mine is right in the middle of a sage grouse area and I am
confident with the reclaimed reclamation that has been done there the sage grouse
will move right behind the scar of the mind and pick up right where they left off
and it will be a better sage grouse habitat because of the reclamation.
Isn't it true that reclamation always works a little bit better?
We are creating sage grouse habitat where there has been intrusions of Juniper
and Pinion especially up in Box Elder county we have Utah state collaring hundreds
of sage grouse and their monitoring sage grouse that are moving into areas that we
have reclaimed and nesting there in places that they were historically not sage
grouse breed areas.
Excellent we have to take another quick break and continue our conversation with
Mike Styler from the Dpt. Of Natural Resources when we come back on the County
Seat.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are talking with Mike Styler from the Dpt. Of
Natural Resources with 7 divisions under him we have covered a lot of them and
we have a few to go in just a few minutes so let's move on. I want to talk about the
geological survey because they have been playing a big role in development of
thermal energy what has been going on there?
Down in the Millford area the federal government has been looking for a good
geothermal site to do some experimentation on so our folks went down there and
did a lot of studies course we have the Glendale geothermal plant already in
existence but they have this idea if they go down into the hot rocks about 7 or 8
thousand feet down and utilize the new technology that has been utilized in the oil
and gas industry which is fracking what if we went down and fracked those hot
rocks and we drill a well and we inject water and let it go through that cracked rock
and then provide another well site for it to come up so you take that water down it
flashed to steam and it comes up the other well you run your turbines you
condense the water and then you run back down and have a closed loop it's almost
like perpetual motion. This could be great in changing the energy outlook.
Not just talking about doing the seismic research to find the rocks, right?
Right. They have the right kind of rock in there and the thing I like about it will be a
closed system it won't take a lot of water to create the energy it will be a closed
loop there will be some loss but it will not take near as much water as a coal fired
power plant or a natural gas fired power plant it will be a returning cycle of heated
steam.
How many geothermal areas in the state that we can tap for something like that.
Well that geothermal down around Milford runs from Milford to Delta.
That's big.
It's a huge area there are other areas in the state but our Utah beat out a similar
area over in Fallon Nevada so we are going to be recipients of about 140 million
dollar grant going through the University of Utah to do research on the geothermal
potential in Utah.
Excellent alright while we are out in that part of the state lets touch on Snake
Valley water.
That is one of my favorite things as a young county commissioner in 1989 I signed
protests against southern valley water filing on the water in snake valley I was
afraid it would damage Millard county where I was a county commissioner. I have
been involved with this since 1989 one of the great things legislature did they
appropriated over 2 million dollars which geological survey has gone out and drilled
a series of 22 well they are monitoring wells and springs out in snake valley to see
what is happening right now with the current usage of water. I can tell you the
water tables are going down and southern Nevada water has not even entered
into the picture we are already using more water on our ranches and in our homes
out in snake valley than is available.
How are we going to fix that?
The locals want to do is get the state engineer to start a water management plan
and start limiting the use of water in the snake valley.
Okay we need to talk about watershed restoration or we can talk about yurts in the
state part.
Those are my 2 favorite children. Our state parks are doing great our visitation is
increasing by double digits every year we are planning on investing 19 million
dollars of the money that we have earned at state parks next year to make them
better. People want to bring their motorhomes they want water power and they
want wifi we are going to try and make them all available. My favorite thing that
we do in the state is improve water sheds. We have a great set of partners with
BLM, forest service, sportsman groups and counties we go out reseed, replant the
landscape into what should be growing there and we want healthy landscapes.
We have touched on this for an entire half hour but that makes a significant change
in ground water if you can get all those straws out of the ground.
Absolutely remember the pinion and juniper and getting and aspen stand growing
the aspen put 30 to 40 percent more water into the ground than pinion juniper
which pump water out of the soil 365 days a year and they kill off all the
undergrowth.
Okay you can go back to parks for one more minute, let's talk about trail system for
a second and finish the show on that. How active are we trying to make that off
road expertise better in Utah?
As you know we have folks dedicated to trails and parks not only for safety training
getting our young people out safely on the trails teaching them how to use off road
vehicles but we are maintain a list of the trails that are there that is an online list
people can get access to to know where can I go ride where is a good safe place at
which level of expertise and I think you have some new information that area that
will help us to encourage people to be out having more experiences more times.
There you go thanks for the plug that will be with At Your Leisure just keep
watching this week. Mike thank you so much for taking the time appreciate it.
Thank you for tuning in remember local government is where your life happens
these issues that happen with DNR are probably the closest interface with our
counties and we will see you next week on The County Seat.
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