A recreation proposal that would allow "city slickers" to help drive cattle along the Dolores river corridor near Slick Rock was recently denied by BLM field-office manager Mike Znerold.

But Znerold told ranchers Al Heaton, David James, and Brant Davis that a new dude-ranching proposal would be expedited if the proposal included only the upland areas of their current grazing permit north and northwest of Slick Rock.

"I was feeling like I needed to support this to support alternative ways for ranchers to make money doing this kind of stuff, but not at the degradation of the watershed," explained Znerold.

" I said no for the river, and if they want to make a proposal for the uplands, we’ll process the permit and do whatever we need to do to meet the laws."

Heaton said on Monday that the three planned to submit a new dude-ranching proposal to take four to eight paying riders on rustic cattle drives across the 64,000-acre winter and summer grazing permits he and James lease in Dolores County. The riders would help herd the cattle from pasture to pasture on the permits.

The proposal would not include the Dolores River corridor because "that was not the main part of it, anyway." Heaton said the 200 to 400 head of cattle he and James own are trailed on the river only during one week in November when the cattle are moving from the summer to winter range.

Heaton and James originally submitted the proposal last summer, but withdrew the most controversial part of their request this winter after the BLM received numerous comments from rafters and national environmental groups opposing it.

The withdrawn proposal included trailing the cattle for seven days from eight miles north of the Bradfield Bridge to the Dove Creek pumping station. The remote area has not been grazed for 15 years and includes part of the Dolores River corridor.

Znerold said the BLM would also be monitoring the area of the river to determine the impacts livestock have had.

"Basically, I needed assurance that trailing of livestock — their 200 head — down the river once each year was not causing any environmental impacts," he explained.

The BLM would monitor plots of land in the corridor to see if the vegetation changes because of the cattle.