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 road 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 The Congress repealed the old statute in 1976.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 road 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 road 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 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  And the new regulation breathed life back into this outdated law by encouraging states and counties to assert the misguided road claims.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 Roads, So Goes the Rest of the West
The first road the Interior Department means to deal away under the new regulation is in Utah where the state is claiming a road in Juab County in the state's west desert region.  And, it is, sure enough, a road.  The state *could* seek a right of way for this mostly gravel road 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 it?  Because the road here isn'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 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
Though the route in Juab County is a road, the evidence presented doesn't begin to substantiate Utah's claim that the road belongs 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 this Utah road claim plays out before moving forward on other applications in Utah and elsewhere.

You can find the road application at
http://www.ut.blm.gov/rs2477weisshighway/applicationlinks.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 this shamefully inadequate Utah claim for a public road.  In particular, we must demand thorough information regarding road construction and maintenance, ecological and wildlife impacts, and sufficient historical information to substantiate the claim.

You can send that message immediately from the previous page.  If you'd prefer to write your own comments, please send it to:

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

Remember, the deadline for comments is Saturday, May 8, 2004.