Post by greenjeep on Feb 12, 2005 0:31:27 GMT -5
Suit over backcountry roads returns to court
Public land: The 10th Circuit could settle the question of what constitutes a county right of way
By Joe Baird
The Salt Lake Tribune
Turned away twice at the district court level in a bid to assert control of undeveloped backcountry roads on public land, a trio of Utah counties is taking its case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
And the outcome could finally define the terms for what actually constitutes a county right of way under the so-called RS 2477 law.
Oral arguments will be heard this morning at the Moss Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City in the latest installment of a lawsuit the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed against the Bureau of Land Management in 1996.
The environmental group charged that the BLM failed to protect federal lands by allowing the counties to grade and realign a series of different roads, including some in the newly created Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, in a bid to assert right-of-way claims.
Revised Statute 2477 is a Civil War-era law that granted rights of way for the construction of highways over public land. The statute was repealed by Congress in 1976, but existing roads were grandfathered in.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell sided with SUWA in 2001, ruling that San Juan, Kane and Garfield counties did not have RS2477 rights to 15 of 16 disputed roads they had claimed on BLM land - and that they violated federal law by grading the routes in 1996 without the BLM's consent.
Campbell affirmed the ruling last year when she denied all substantive motions by the counties while granting those filed by the BLM, SUWA and the Sierra Club. The result: Environmental groups now have legal ammunition to challenge county claims to rights of way on federal land.
In that context, SUWA Conservation Director Heidi McIntosh says the 10th Circuit's eventual ruling will be "profound."
"This is much more than a tussle over dirt roads," she said.
"This case is about whether Utah and certain counties will be able to use RS2477 as a way to claim that thousands of dirt trails across public lands are actually 'highways.' If successful, RS2477 claims will be used as a way to gum up future wilderness designations, off-road-vehicle management, wildlife protection and the protection of rare riparian areas and wash bottoms."
But San Juan County Attorney Craig Hall argues that having access to these back roads is vital to the long-term economic viability of San Juan and the other counties.
"The federal government is restricting these roads more and more as time goes on," he said. "San Juan County is one of the largest counties in the country. If we don't have access to the backcountry, it doesn't matter what is back there, whether it's minerals or scenery. We can't get to it."
Hall says the dispute centers on what are called class D roads, which aren't graded but have nonetheless been used over the years by miners and ranchers. But McIntosh says these roads have never been mapped or constructed in the conventional sense; many, she adds, simply trail off after a short distance. Others are found in stream beds.
Public land: The 10th Circuit could settle the question of what constitutes a county right of way
By Joe Baird
The Salt Lake Tribune
Turned away twice at the district court level in a bid to assert control of undeveloped backcountry roads on public land, a trio of Utah counties is taking its case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
And the outcome could finally define the terms for what actually constitutes a county right of way under the so-called RS 2477 law.
Oral arguments will be heard this morning at the Moss Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City in the latest installment of a lawsuit the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed against the Bureau of Land Management in 1996.
The environmental group charged that the BLM failed to protect federal lands by allowing the counties to grade and realign a series of different roads, including some in the newly created Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, in a bid to assert right-of-way claims.
Revised Statute 2477 is a Civil War-era law that granted rights of way for the construction of highways over public land. The statute was repealed by Congress in 1976, but existing roads were grandfathered in.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell sided with SUWA in 2001, ruling that San Juan, Kane and Garfield counties did not have RS2477 rights to 15 of 16 disputed roads they had claimed on BLM land - and that they violated federal law by grading the routes in 1996 without the BLM's consent.
Campbell affirmed the ruling last year when she denied all substantive motions by the counties while granting those filed by the BLM, SUWA and the Sierra Club. The result: Environmental groups now have legal ammunition to challenge county claims to rights of way on federal land.
In that context, SUWA Conservation Director Heidi McIntosh says the 10th Circuit's eventual ruling will be "profound."
"This is much more than a tussle over dirt roads," she said.
"This case is about whether Utah and certain counties will be able to use RS2477 as a way to claim that thousands of dirt trails across public lands are actually 'highways.' If successful, RS2477 claims will be used as a way to gum up future wilderness designations, off-road-vehicle management, wildlife protection and the protection of rare riparian areas and wash bottoms."
But San Juan County Attorney Craig Hall argues that having access to these back roads is vital to the long-term economic viability of San Juan and the other counties.
"The federal government is restricting these roads more and more as time goes on," he said. "San Juan County is one of the largest counties in the country. If we don't have access to the backcountry, it doesn't matter what is back there, whether it's minerals or scenery. We can't get to it."
Hall says the dispute centers on what are called class D roads, which aren't graded but have nonetheless been used over the years by miners and ranchers. But McIntosh says these roads have never been mapped or constructed in the conventional sense; many, she adds, simply trail off after a short distance. Others are found in stream beds.