http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,230006825,00.html
San Juan demands trail reopen
National Park Service gets a Dec. 1 deadline
By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writer
San Juan County commissioners have demanded the National Park Service remove the barricades closing the popular Salt Creek Canyon trail in Canyonlands National Park. Or else.
They have given park officials until Dec. 1 to reopen it or commissioners said they will order county crews to physically remove the barricades.
"The county owns the road," commissioner Bill Redd said. "The road is there to facilitate the people to see one of the more magnificent structures in all the country. Older people can't simply walk the umpteen miles. We, the county, are willing to work with the Park Service on schedules to better control the habitat. But what we're not willing to do is surrender what we consider our property right of that road over to them."
Canyonlands superintendent Jerry Banta said he hasn't responded to commissioners' request. It has been referred to the Park Service's legal staff.
The trail has been closed for two and half years. And park officials kept it closed to under take a yearlong analysis about whether to open the road seasonally or permanently, Banta said.
"It doesn't make much sense to us (to open it)," Banta said, while the environmental study is being done.
Environmentalists have long argued that the trail be closed because of the damage vehicles caused to the vegetation and riparian areas of the canyon. The trail runs in and out of Salt Creek, which is one of only two year-round, freshwater creeks in the park other than the Colorado and Green rivers.
Two years ago, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball directed the park to bar vehicles from a 10-mile segment of the Salt Creek road, otherwise known as Salt Creek Jeep Trail, above Peekaboo Spring. The route provides the only vehicular access to the Angel Arch trailhead.
Kimball's decision came after Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed suit in 1995 challenging the Canyonlands' Backcountry Management Plan. Kimball rejected SUWA's legal challenge to the plan but agreed that the trail should be closed.
An off-road vehicle advocacy group appealed and, in August, the 10th U.S. District Court of Appeals remanded the decision back to Kimball for further review. The court ordered Kimball to "re-examine the evidence in the record regarding the impairment caused by vehicles in the area, applying the appropriate standard to the National Park Service finding of temporary impairment."
Until Kimball issues a final ruling, park officials have kept the route closed.
The Salt Creek road has been a lightning rod in the ongoing fight by rural counties to assert claims over thousands of miles of dirt roads across public lands. The state plans to sue the federal government over those ownership claims.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-MAIL: donna@desnews.com
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Tim
ORC Land Use columnist
My August article on ORC
http://www.off-road.com/land
San Juan demands trail reopen
National Park Service gets a Dec. 1 deadline
By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writer
San Juan County commissioners have demanded the National Park Service remove the barricades closing the popular Salt Creek Canyon trail in Canyonlands National Park. Or else.
They have given park officials until Dec. 1 to reopen it or commissioners said they will order county crews to physically remove the barricades.
"The county owns the road," commissioner Bill Redd said. "The road is there to facilitate the people to see one of the more magnificent structures in all the country. Older people can't simply walk the umpteen miles. We, the county, are willing to work with the Park Service on schedules to better control the habitat. But what we're not willing to do is surrender what we consider our property right of that road over to them."
Canyonlands superintendent Jerry Banta said he hasn't responded to commissioners' request. It has been referred to the Park Service's legal staff.
The trail has been closed for two and half years. And park officials kept it closed to under take a yearlong analysis about whether to open the road seasonally or permanently, Banta said.
"It doesn't make much sense to us (to open it)," Banta said, while the environmental study is being done.
Environmentalists have long argued that the trail be closed because of the damage vehicles caused to the vegetation and riparian areas of the canyon. The trail runs in and out of Salt Creek, which is one of only two year-round, freshwater creeks in the park other than the Colorado and Green rivers.
Two years ago, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball directed the park to bar vehicles from a 10-mile segment of the Salt Creek road, otherwise known as Salt Creek Jeep Trail, above Peekaboo Spring. The route provides the only vehicular access to the Angel Arch trailhead.
Kimball's decision came after Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed suit in 1995 challenging the Canyonlands' Backcountry Management Plan. Kimball rejected SUWA's legal challenge to the plan but agreed that the trail should be closed.
An off-road vehicle advocacy group appealed and, in August, the 10th U.S. District Court of Appeals remanded the decision back to Kimball for further review. The court ordered Kimball to "re-examine the evidence in the record regarding the impairment caused by vehicles in the area, applying the appropriate standard to the National Park Service finding of temporary impairment."
Until Kimball issues a final ruling, park officials have kept the route closed.
The Salt Creek road has been a lightning rod in the ongoing fight by rural counties to assert claims over thousands of miles of dirt roads across public lands. The state plans to sue the federal government over those ownership claims.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-MAIL: donna@desnews.com
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Tim
ORC Land Use columnist
My August article on ORC
http://www.off-road.com/land
