Background
Canyon country, rivers, mountains and archaeological treasures are all part of America's heritage. They are meant to be protected for us and for future generations. But in 2003, the administration issued a regulation that allows states and counties to sidestep established checks and balances and take over thousands of miles of trails and routes across these magical places.

It amounts to a blank check and no semblance of balance. Scientists, private landowners and land managers agree that tens of thousands of  claims some states have already asserted gravely threaten our treasured western lands and watersheds. If granted, they will jeopardize wildlife and increase the threat of vandalism and other damage to ancient fossil beds and archaeological sites.

How Did We Get Here?
The roads issue reaches back to an archaic 1866 mining statute, R.S.2477, by which the Congress granted permission for the construction of roads across unreserved public lands. The Congress repealed the old statute in 1976. But it didn't extinguish claims that may have existed before 1976. Nor did it impose any deadlines for the assertion of those highway right-of-way claims under the old law.

Several states, Utah and Alaska chief among them, seized on the shadowy old law to assert thousands of highway claims. In Utah, the claims include routes in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and in candidate wilderness areas in the red rock country. Other claims threaten Mojave National Preserve in California and even Denali National Park in Alaska.

These claims usually have nothing to do with legitimate transportation needs, everything to do with bulldozing old tracks to disqualify entire areas for wilderness protection and with asserting state and county authority over national parks, wildlife refuges and monuments that belong to us all. And the new regulation breathed life back into this outdated law by encouraging states and counties to assert the misguided road claims.

Only Perfunctory Public Involvement
The regulation is known as the "disclaimer of interest" rule because the government "disclaims" any interest in the land or, in this case, the road, route, trail or area that is claimed. Thus, with a calculated shrug, the Interior Department can say "we don't care" and hand off land that belongs to all Americans to states, local governments or private interests. And it can do so without environmental review and with only the most perfunctory public involvement.

The regulation will make it easier than ever for this administration to give away under the old mining law loophole these "roads" that are often nothing more than cow paths, jeep tracks, and wash bottoms.

As Utah Goes on Highways, So Goes the Rest of the West
Four highway claims the Interior Department means to deal away under the new regulation are in Utah. The four highway claims are scattered around the state: two in Daggett County in the northeast corner of the state and two in Beaver County near Milford. The state *could* seek rights of way for these routes through a well-established and often-used provision in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act or FLPMA. It was FLPMA that abolished the old mining statute in 1976, replacing it with a provision to accommodate legitimate right-of-way claims.

Why not use the other provision? Because the routes aren't the issue. The issue is precedent. The Interior Department is using this case to legitimize the disclaimer rule and set it in place as both standard and precedent for all the tens of thousands of claims that now hang over our western public lands. The standard set here is laughably low and is meant to be.

Scant Evidence Supports an Unprecedented Giveaway
All four routes dirt roads probably wouldn't qualify as highways under any definition and the evidence presented doesn't begin to substantiate Utah's claims that the roads belong to the state and not to the public for whom the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has managed the land for decades. The State of Utah threw some maps together with present-day pictures of the road, a few stories from old-timers and little else. But that seems adequate to an Interior Department that is looking for excuses to give away public land.

Interior Department officials have publicly said they're waiting to see how these Utah highway claims play out before moving forward on other applications elsewhere.

You can find the highway applications at:
http://www.ut.blm.gov/rs2477/claims.htm

Please Take Action Now!
It is critically important that the Interior Department hear from us now and that we demand much more evidence than is contained in these shamefully inadequate Utah claims for public roads. In particular, we must demand thorough information regarding highway construction and maintenance, ecological and wildlife impacts, and sufficient historical information to substantiate each claim.

Use your back key to backup and send our letter (always adding your own thoughts when you can), or  if you'd prefer to write your own comments, and we hope you will, there's contact information below and a sample letter that contains the most important points. Remember, the deadline for comments is Sunday, April 24, 2005.

Contact Information
Mike DeKeyrel
Bureau of Land Management
Utah State Office
Attn: RS 2477
PO Box 45155
Salt Lake City, Utah 84145-0155
E-mail: utrs2477comments@blm.gov
Fax: 801-539-4260

Sample Letter
Dear Mr. DeKeyrel:

Utah's stunning public landscapes, from red rock country to the Wasatch Front, provide unsurpassed recreational opportunities and outstanding natural values. The federal government, and your agency in particular, is charged with protecting these places for future generations.

The Bureau of Land Management's insistence on surrendering rights of way on these lands to the state and the counties through the so-called "disclaimer of interest" rule turns its back on this fundamental duty.

All four highway claims -for little-used dirt roads- under the disclaimer rule will set the standard for hundreds, possibly thousands, of claims that follow. Yet Utah's applications to acquire the four routes are grossly inadequate.

These applications for highway claims in Daggett and Beaver Counties lack the evidence necessary to support a decision to give the State or the counties the BLM land. Indeed, the applications are so cursory and deficient in information that it is difficult to see this process as anything more than a paper exercise to justify a decision already made. Our public lands deserve better.

Before considering giving these routes to the State, the Bureau of Land Management must demand evidence sufficient to support the State's claim that it owns the road.

Further, this process lacks the checks and balances required in most federal public lands decisions. There is no environmental review and no opportunity for the public to review the BLM's rationale for its decisions or to see all the evidence that has been put before the agency.

These applications must be denied because the information presented is completely inadequate to justify giving away our land. This ridiculously low bar must not become the standard for giving away other lands in Utah and across the United States, with little evidence and even less forethought.

Sincerely,
(Your name and address)