PUBLIC LANDS: BLM authorized 'spider web' of OHV trails in Utah, lawsuit claims
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Friday, December 21, 2012
The Bureau of Land Management in 2008 designated enough miles of off-highway vehicle trails in Utah to drive from Atlanta to Anchorage, Alaska, threatening sensitive landscapes and violating federal law, according to a lawsuit by conservation groups.
In a filing yesterday before the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, the groups accuse BLM of authorizing a "spider web" of motorized trails that could erode sensitive soils, damage or destroy archaeological sites, disturb wildlife and cause air pollution.
The filing was the latest step in a marathon case first filed in 2008 that challenges six BLM resource management plans covering more than 11.5 million acres in Utah.
The management plans, known as RMPs, are revised by BLM roughly every 15 years and determine where and how oil and gas development and motorized recreation should be managed, in addition to other uses including grazing, hunting, hiking and wildlife and resource protections.
Stephen Bloch, an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, one of seven plaintiffs in the case, said BLM's Richfield plan threatens rugged landscapes including the Dirty Devil Canyon, made famous as a hideout for Butch Cassidy, and the Henry Mountains, the last range to be mapped in the lower 48 states.
"These are just remarkable Western landscapes that are now sliced up with ORV trails," Bloch said.
The court said it will consider the RMPs one at a time, with Richfield, which covers roughly 2.1 million acres in southern Utah, coming first.
The other environmental plaintiffs are the Sierra Club, the Grand Canyon Trust, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Utah Rivers Council, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and Rocky Mountain Wild.
The state of Utah, its school trust lands, counties, and the BlueRibbon Coalition -- which advocates for motorized trail use -- have intervened in the case in defense of the BLM plans.
BLM does not comment on pending litigation.
An email to the state of Utah was not returned by in time for publication, but in September, Harry Souvall, public lands section chief in the Utah attorney general's office, said overturning the RMPs would dash several years of public engagement, waste millions of dollars spent planning and increase uncertainty for public lands users.
"We felt we had a strong interest in finality," he said.
But the environmental groups yesterday argued BLM designated 4,200 miles of dirt roads and trails for off-highway vehicle use without considering the impacts to wildlife, cultural resources or stream banks. Bloch said BLM staff had failed to visit many of the routes they designated.
The agency also violated federal laws requiring it to designate areas of critical environmental concern and to identify rivers Congress may protect as wild and scenic, the lawsuit states. More broadly, environmental groups claim the plans failed to consider a variety of environmental impacts including air quality, off-highway vehicle use, wilderness values and climate change.
Bloch said he hopes the case will remind people that the RMPs are far from final.
