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County Commissioner Breidenthal flies in anti-monument consultant on his own dime Howard Prairie Lake is included in the proposed expansion area of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch Wednesday Nov 9, 2016 at 7:31 PM Nov 9, 2016 at 7:31 PM Vickie Aldous for the Tidings @VickieAldous Jackson County Commissioner Doug Breidenthal said he is paying about $1,500 out of his own pocket to fly in a consultant who could help county officials fight a proposed expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument east of Ashland. "To me, it's a small price to pay to have the facts and the real information," Breidenthal said on Wednesday. He said he will pay for airfare, meals and lodging. James Carlson of the Kansas Natural Resource Coalition and Stillwater Technical Solutions will meet with commissioners at 9 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Jackson Room of the Jackson County Courthouse, 10 S. Oakdale Ave., Medford. Breidenthal said he would like the county to hire Carlson to prepare a study examining a range of potential impacts from an expansion — from access restrictions affecting the public to reduced logging revenue off the land. He estimated the study could take three to four weeks. In a fight to block a proposed Bears Ears national monument in Utah, San Juan County commissioners are spending $53,000 for a report by Carlson and ranching rights proponent Angus McIntosh. The consultants argue that President Barack Obama can't establish the monument because ranchers hold private property rights to grazing allotments on public land there, the Salt Lake Tribune reported in late October. The Utah Attorney General's Office has shot down such claims in meetings with ranchers around the state, the newspaper said. A Bears Ears national monument in southern Utah would include a mesa, mountains and a dense concentration of archaeological sites, the newspaper said. Carlson was also a proponent of community-based, voluntary efforts to protect the lesser prairie-chicken in the Midwest rather than have it listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the Leader & Times newspaper reported in 2013. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the bird as threatened in 2014, but then announced in July it would take the lesser prairie-chicken off the list in response to a court ruling. A variety of voluntary efforts with landowners and farmers to protect habitat — many of which predated the listing — are ongoing, the federal agency said. Proponents of doubling the 66,000-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument hope Obama will use the 1906 Antiquities Act to expand the monument. Then-President Bill Clinton created the monument in 2000 using the act, citing the need to protect the area's biological diversity. On Tuesday, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners sent a letter to Obama and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell outlining their concerns with an expansion, including reduced logging revenue and restricted public access. They also included a 178-page transcript from a public hearing they held in Medford in late October about the proposed expansion. While verbal testimony was about evenly split between expansion supporters and opponents, opponents outnumbered supporters 2 to 1 when verbal and written comments were counted, said Commissioner Rick Dyer. Commissioners said their hearing was more representative of the community than an earlier meeting called by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in Ashland that attracted mainly supporters. County officials said they were not notified about that meeting. Supporters of an expansion say it would further protect the rich biological diversity of the area, improve quality of life, enhance recreation and boost tourism. Reach staff reporter Vickie Aldous at 541-776-4486 or [email protected]. Follow her at www.twitter.com/VickieAldous.