Within this grazing allotment there is a remarkable amount of feed, the short fall is the amount of available water for livestock and wildlife. The project proposal would line existing pond with a heavy liner to catch and store water for livestock and wildlife. The pond/catchment would stay within their original footprint and collect runoff from floods and storms to catch, harvest and store water for drinking. There is very little water within the allotment that stays for very long, by using a liner it would allow water to stay for longer periods of time. A floating lid would be placed on both catchment/ponds to help reduce evaporation. Page Arizona has a average evaporation rate of 90 inches a year. It is estimated that this would be just as high being in the same area. By increasing the pond water holding ability it will allow mule deer, desert bighorn to have another available source as well as give Westhoffs the ability to graze his livestock for longer periods of time.

To go into an existing pond and one small spring and clean, line and fence the area off. Each pond will not only be lined but will have a floating cover to reduce the amount of evaporation. This pond will act as a catchment, water storage and drinking source. The development would be about 1 acre in size. The dimensions of the site will be approximately 300 x 150ft. The catchment area is about .75 or .8 of an acre, and the pond that would catch the water about .2 of an acre, or 90ftx90ftx4ft in the lowest corner. The dimensions of the liner for the pond will probalby need to be a little bigger than that to account for the pond depth. In a year, each one should catch 130,000 gallons, and should be able to water 75 head during the winter grazing season. A pond of that size should be able to hold about 200000 gallons. I'd like to also do some kind of a floating lid too to reduce the evaporation. Page only gets about 6 inches of rain but has over 90 inches of evaporation a year. The grass on Grand Bench starts about where that second pond is and goes all the way out to the point. All the water from springs is quite a bit higher on the bench than these ponds, and the grass isn't very good there. The cows end up walking sometimes 5 miles at times from water to feed. It can definitely make a difference to work on water out there. Grand Bench pasture has 1339 AUMs, but it is part of a 3489 active AUM ranch, about 300 head year round operation. It is part of a year round permit, but it is one of the winter pastures

If this project is not considered for funding the amount of available water will not be sufficient for livestock and wildlife. The permittee will not have the grazing flexibility nor the income to sustain his lively hood.

UTAH MULE DEER STATEWIDE MANAGEMENT PLAN DEER HERD UNIT MANAGEMENT PLAN Deer Herd Unit #26 UTAH BIGHORN SHEEP STATEWIDE MANAGEMENT PLAN Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Grazing Plan Amendment Monument Management Plan (MMP).

There is a possibility of fire within the allotment. Grazing livestock can and will reduce the impact or spread of wildfire.

Water Quantity will be increased with in the allotment after the pond/catchments are lined.

n/a Westhoff has been on the ground with BLM and Glen Canyon Recreation and as long as Mitch stays within the existing ponds the project can proceed as planned.

Clean the existing earthen pond, line the pond with a heavy geo liner, the liners will stay within the footprint of the pond around 150x300 sq ft. The bottom 1/3 of the pond will serve as storage and drinking and the top 2/3's as water harvesting catchment. The whole area will be fenced off to keep the livestock off the catchment part. The bottom 1/3 will be double the amount of thickness to allow for livestock and wildlife travel and drinking. The water storage part of the pond will be covered with a floating cover to help reduce evaporation. Each development would be about 1 acre in size. The dimensions of each site will be approximately 300 x 150ft. The catchment area is about .75 or .8 of an acre, and the pond that would catch the water about .2 of an acre, or 90ftx90ftx4ft in the lowest corner. The dimensions of the liner for the pond will probalby need to be a little bigger than that to account for the pond depth. In a year, each one should catch 130,000 gallons, and should be able to water 75 head during the winter grazing season. A pond of that size should be able to hold about 200000 gallons. I'd like to also do some kind of a floating lid too to reduce the evaporation. Page only gets about 6 inches of rain but has over 90 inches of evaporation a year.

Before and after photos of the project area will be taken as well as photo points set up to help monitor the use near the ponds and watch for impacts to the area. Photo point monitoring will be set up near each location to monitor use and growth each year, and to help permittee to gauge the amount of livestock he uses or adjust his time.

MItch Westhoff Glen Canyon national recreation area BLM UDWR

The permittee will follow all grazing plans with the NPS and BLM-GSENM. He will maintain the systems to keep himself in the cattle business. The pond/catchment may need cleaning every few years to maintain the amount of water storage to keep enough available water livestock and wildlife.

Rangeland conditions are expected to improve following implementation of the propose water storage system. The health, vigor, recruitment and production of perennial grasses, forbs and shrubs would improve which would provide a more palatable and nutritional source of forage for both livestock and wildlife, because of better livestock distribution and proper use. This will allow for proper rest during the growing season. Overall livestock performance (e.g. increased cow weights, increased calf crops, increased weaning weights, etc) and improve the economic stability of the permittees due to an increase in the quantity and quality of grasses andother herbaceous forage which are important to livestock grazing. With proper grazing do to proper livestock distribution should lead to improved range condition, and increase available forage for livestock and wildlife.