State and rural counties in Utah claim at least 15,000 jeep trails, cow paths, streambeds, and long-abandoned mining tracks as RS 2477 rights-of-way (that’s 15,000 routes, not just miles). And Interior Secretary Gale Norton entered into secret negotiations with the state to work out a deal giving the State what it wants on these claims. But a judge recently rejected Interior’s efforts to keep documents related to the negotiations secret.

The state of Utah has never actually sued the federal government over RS 2477 claims, but has threatened to. That threat alone was enough to spur Interior Secretary Gale Norton into backroom negotiations with Utah state officials to work out a deal on Utah’s claims.

Excluding the Public
Pointedly excluded from the secret negotiations have been the general public, and conservation organizations, including those belonging to the Utah Wilderness Coalition, which calls for Wilderness designation for 9.1 million acres of Red Rock Canyon Country. The RS 2477 negotiations have been underway for nearly two years, and both state and federal governments have refused to provide information on what they’re up to, and have resisted conservationists’ efforts to get material under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its state equivalent.

Recently, however, a federal judge rejected the Interior Department’s efforts to keep documents related to the negotiations secret, siding with The Wilderness Society and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, who filed a lawsuit under FOIA against the Department.
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Without question, the outcome of this process is likely to result in a give-away of federal public lands in Utah, or practical authority of it, and the public will have had no voice in that. It bodes poorly for Wilderness designation in the state, and for existing protected areas such as Utah’s national parks and new national monuments.

Troubling Precedents in the State
This is not a paranoid fear. Conservationists had to sue the National Park Service in 1995 to force closure of a jeep route through Salt Creek, Canyonlands National Park’s third-most important riparian zone, after the mighty Green and Colorado Rivers. San Juan County, Utah, had claimed the streambed as an RS 2477 right-of-way.

In 1996, counties in southern Utah defied the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s protected status and bulldozed roads out of obscure trail. Now they’re trying to exert an RS 2477 claim in the heart of the Monument in the fragile bed of the Para River, within the boundaries of a protected Wilderness Study Area.

Burr Trail
The first major skirmish in the road wars was in Utah in the mid-1980s. At issue was the Burr Trail, a scenic, then-dirt byway leading from the little town of Boulder, through Capitol Reef National Park to the Bullfrog Marina within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Garfield County said it would widen, realign, and pave the trail, under an RS 2477 right-of-way.

The Burr Trail case was in and out of courts for years. It served as a research and development program for precisely the anti-wilderness weapon that counties sought. They jumped on it. Some counties didn’t wait for validity determinations on their road claims. They just started bulldozing roads into areas proposed for protection and dared public land managers to do anything about it. Backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Utah legislature, and equipped with hand-held GPS instruments, an army of employees hit the backcountry over the next few years, working to document old rights-of way. Today, Utah and its counties may claim as many as 15,000 routes -- not miles, routes.