By RYAN SHERIDAN
Daily Press writer
The Area Representative of Senator Wayne Allard visited Craig Tuesday to hear opinions, issues and concerns from the community.
Four residents took advantage of the opportunity to send a message to the senator.
Allard Representative Beth Washburn was expecting approximately one dozen residents to participate, based on attendance at past meetings.
“There are a lot of land issues in this area, with mineral and oil surface rights being one of them,” Washburn said.
Polly Dickinson wanted to know why the confirmations of various Bureau of Land Management positions had not been made, especially for the Director of the BLM. She also asked if and when the process could be completed, or at least started up again.
“These decisions affect all 27,000 permittees in the western-United States,” Dickinson said. “Permits are not being renewed, not that all of them are due this year, but we’ve had no direction on what the BLM is doing.”
Dickinson also raised the issue of rural health care, and the deteriorating situation for individual and small business policies.
She believes the number of companies offering policies is shrinking, along with health care facilities that will accept these policies.
“My greatest fear is not being insured,” she said. “The situation is very iffy, and the rates just keep going up.”
Washburn assured Dickinson that the new Allard health care aide would be concentrating on health issues and examining rural health care.
Washburn also said she will gather as much information as she can from Andy Colosimo, the Allard aide that works with land issues, concerning where the BLM confirmation is being held up.
Jean Stetson raised concerns with the slow confirmation process, and wanted Washburn to pass on Stetson’s concern about the lack of duties on the state-subsidized Canadian beef industry.
Stetson believes the lack of duties is creating an unfair situation for domestic beef producers. She pointed out that cattle only needed to be fed in the United States for 60 days to be labeled U.S. Beef which the larger corporations gladly did to purchase cheaper stock and still be able to label it homegrown.”There recently was a duty put on Canadian lumber to ‘protect American workers’, and that is subsidized exactly like the Canadian beef industry,” she said. “Why can’t we get the same protection?”
Stetson also wanted to know why Allard voted down the sections of the recent farm bill that would have created those duties. She said that she wondering if it was unrelated problems with those particular sections, or if Allard did not support creating those duties.
Both Stetson and Glenda Bellio discussed the difficulties of trying to work with the BLM on Sage Grouse-restoration issues.
They are concerned about dealing with smaller ranchers and creating a better relationship between users and residents and the BLM.
These issues are also affected by the lack of progress on confirmations.
“I really wish the BLM would be more user-friendly,” Bellio said. “They make it extremely difficult to work with them, and if you don’t own several hundred head of livestock, they act like they don’t want to deal with you.
“It’s not the local office only, the whole BLM system is extremely difficult to work with. Paying for leases ahead of time is funky, and improving lease land is such a headache.”
Washburn said that Colosimo will be investigating the residents’ concerns.
“I’ve got a lot of phone calls to make,” Washburn said. “But this is great we know what we need to get working on.”
Washburn also requested that Allard’s office be kept informed on the emerging Northwest Colorado Working Landscape Trust and water issues.
Washburn hopes to arrange a visit by Senator Allard to Craig in March.