CIRCLING CEDAR MOUNTAIN - I'm waiting, waiting to see if it is possible to negotiate any effective environmental compromise with the Bureau of Land Management and thus achieve some of our goals for wildlife.

This story is about a two-day camping trip around Cedar Mountain, Utah, a remote, low-elevation mountain range and Wilderness Inventory Area in the West Desert, far from water and home to a wild horse herd. This range is truth and beauty in earth tones. Brown, tan, orange canyons and rocks; ridges spotted with the dark green forms of juniper; fingers of sagebrush feeding up the canyons.

Native bunchgrasses dot the landscape after recent burns. Cheatgrass fills the sage interspaces in the bottoms of the canyons, while the north-facing slopes are all sage with native bunchgrass and biotic crusts. The south slopes are similar but with less vegetation and more bare ground.

Evidence of wild horses is everywhere. Even with springs five or 10 miles away, the horses are able to access all of the nearly 100,000-acre area - if not in summer, in winter when snow is available.

The few springs to be found are denuded, drying up and weed-infested. The soils are churned, rills are growing into gullies, and biological crust is being displaced and lost along with watershed function. There are too many horses. In fact, there are between 400 and 500 horses in a Herd Management Area where their numbers should be less than 100 based on carrying capacity.

Now comes the Skull Valley Allotment grazing permittee with an offer to build a 150-mile water pipeline with nearly 200 water troughs, ostensibly to enable cattle on this 335,000-acre allotment to eat sufficient cheatgrass to control it because it is causing a high fire frequency aided by bombing and weapons testing at the neighboring Dugway Proving Ground. Of course, cheatgrass has been spread and enabled across the West by livestock grazing. So, one has to be suspicious of any claims to the contrary.

As proposed, the pipeline would encircle the wilderness boundary and enter the wilderness. It would guarantee grazing on Cedar Mountain by thousands of cattle in addition to the feral horses.

I am negotiating with the BLM and the permittee to eliminate the pipeline around Cedar Mountain (50 miles' worth) and build the portion in the lowlands, where the cheatgrass is dominant. This would take their experimental test on grazing control away from Cedar Mountain, where the last native grasses reside.

I have asked that they significantly reduce the wild horse herd to conform to capacity. I have asked that they address the water issue for horses using other means. I have asked for an experimental design with quantitative monitoring to ascertain whether their proposed management accomplishes its expected outcomes.

We will see if this proposal is about trying to manage cheatgrass and prevent fire, or if it's really about getting livestock to the last native forage and decent habitat in the area.

John Carter is Utah director of WWP. He lives in Mendon, Utah.