Conservationists Sniff Victory in Road Ruling

Thursday, June 28, 2001

BY GLEN WARCHOL THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE from http://www.sltrib.com/06282001/utah/109349.htm     Environmentalists hope a ruling this week on an obscure 19th century federal law will deprive their opponents of a crucial tool in blocking wilderness.     U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell ruled in favor of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and the Sierra Club in a 1996 suit against San Juan, Garfield and Kane counties. SUWA and the Sierra Club sued to stop the counties from grading routes across the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Moquith Mountain Wilderness Study Area and Hart's point, near Canyonlands National Park.     The counties said they weren't making new roads, but maintaining existing rights-of- way.     Pivotal in the argument is R.S. 2477, a 135-year-old law defining rights-of-way on public lands. The law was repealed in 1976, but then-existing rights-of-way were grandfathered.     Still, the precise definition of what constituted a "highway" remained vague. Campbell ultimately ruled the routes did not meet the U. S. Bureau of Land Management's interpretation: A sanctioned road must access a particular destination and have been purposely constructed.     "It's a landmark decision," said SUWA attorney Heidi McIntosh. "This ruling will finally bring some reason to the debate. The counties were overreaching. [A legitimate road] is not traces of a miner's passage. It's not a two-track. It's not a stream bottom."     Steve Urquhart, an attorney for the counties, said the counties will appeal to U.S. 10th Circuit Court. The routes in question are not only "highways" grandfathered under the old law, he argues, but vital infrastructure in rural Utah. "They [BLM] decided they weren't highways because they don't go anywhere significant. They led somewhere -- to some of the most beautiful overlooks in the state. Often they were important shortcuts."     Despite the overlay of road-construction particulars, both sides agree the case is not simply about dirt roads in the desert. Millions of acres of Utah are being managed as wilderness study areas. The decision will sharply curtail Western counties' claims of road ownership in these areas, increasing their potential for full wilderness designation.     "For us the issue is access," Urquhart said. "Two-thirds of the state is owned by the federal government. We need to have a way to travel across those 20 million acres."     "It's about who has the say over what is going to happen to public lands," said McIntosh. "When you control the access, you control what happens to the land. . . . R.S. 2477 had become one of the biggest tools in the anti-wilderness tool box. It is being used in all kinds of [public land] issues."     glenwarchol@sltrib.com

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