By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

The excitement never ends in Emery County. All you have to do is look around, and you will find something new to do or explore. Emery County Commissioner Jordan Leonard joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss protecting these lands, acquiring more and upcoming events for the county.

In the March 4 meeting of the Emery County Commissioners, a draft resolution opposing solar technology being placed on state and federal lands within the county was approved. Leonard discussed the rationale behind this move: ” We’re a baseload power county, and so the more power that’s put on the transmission line, the less baseload that’s taken on that line. So baseload power is a concern for us.” 

The Commissioner continued,” Multiple-use is also a concern; we’re a multiple-use county. Once solar is put on federal land, there’s only one use. It also affects the grazing for the farmers and ranchers. And so it’s a red flag for us. I think solar panels on private land are up to the private land owner. But on federal and state land, we have a heavy concern for that. So we did approve a resolution to oppose solar on federal and state land.”

Also addressed in the commission meeting was the approval of a land donation to the county. “There’s some land we acquired with some water shares and its conservation land. So, it is land that needs to be undisturbed. I think it’s nice to have land like that in the county. There’s not a lot of development or anything out there anyway. So it’s nice to secure some of those water shares that came with that land.”

As is tradition, Commissioner Leonard gave a shoutout to a department within the county that has excelled recently. “A huge shout out to the Sheriff’s Office and their hard work to keep our community safe. They were able to have a really good drug bust the other day with fentanyl. And we definitely don’t want fentanyl in our communities. They’re working hard and trying to fight for our community.”

Moving to upcoming events, Leonard first spoke on the “Millsite Off-Ice” fishing tournament on March 28 and 29. “There are tagged fish in Mill Site. And so that’ll be fun for the tournament. We’re excited for it to finally happen. Please sign up on millsiteonice.com.”

Also coming up on March 28 and 29 for the county is the Green River Watermelon Crawl, one of the area’s premiere rock crawls. “The weather is warming up a little bit and then you can see the beauty of the swell and the different routes that they take you, headquartered out of Green River. So that’s a good event that people get excited about.”

Speaking on tourism in Emery as a whole, Leonard stated,” I think the key to it is, we want things for our locals to do as well as mingling with those that want to visit our county. But also support our businesses, bring them into town, cater, come to our restaurants and gas stations and mingle with the community. And a lot of the events that we put on as a county are for the locals as well as those out of town. It is a nice addition to the county’s tourism.”

In closing, Leonard shared,” The weather is getting nicer. I went to a few baseball games this week, so it’s good to see the community outside. I think a lot of us have been cooped up, but we’re looking forward to seeing everybody out and about in the community. And if you have any questions, please reach out.”