FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Creek Road, Canyonlands Park
CONTACT: BRIAN HAWTHORNE
Executive Director, Utah Shared Access Alliance
(801) 484-3940
Salt Lake City – Seeking to re-open the Salt Creek Canyon road,
Utah Shared Access Alliance (USA-ALL) has sued to compel Canyonlands
National Park officials to abide by the terms of the park's 1995 Backcountry
Management Plan (BMP).
“The Park Service's flip-flopping necessitated USA-ALL’s
action,” said Brian Hawthorne, USA-ALL executive director.
USA-ALL’s suit was filed as a cross-claim against the NPS on
March 5, 2001 in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance (SUWA), in which SUWA challenged the 1995 BMP and sought
to close all backcountry roads in Canyonlands National Park. USA-ALL
and other access groups, including the BlueRibbon Coalition and the
United Four Wheel Drive Association intervened in the lawsuit, which
at that stage was vigorously defended by National Park Service (NPS).
The access groups and NPS were successful in preventing the closure
of several popular jeep roads. However, the federal court ordered
the Salt Creek road closed at the Peekaboo Springs Campground, finding
that environmental effect of the road might permanently impair the
park's enjoyment by future generations.
In so ruling the court set aside a permit system adopted in the BMP
whereby the number of vehicles allowed to travel up the road would
be limited. Suddenly a trip to view one of Utah's most spectacular
geologic formations, Angel Arch, became a rigorous 22-mile backpacking
expedition.
USA-ALL had assumed that it was in a common battle with NPS to keep
the Salt Creek road open. However, when USA-ALL and the other access
groups appealed the decision, the NPS curiously failed to join in
the appeal. And when USA-ALL argued there was no NPS policy to support
the court's decision, the NPS undertook, after the fact, to create
such a policy. The NPS quickly prepared and submitted “Draft
NPS Management Policies,” to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,
which purported to support the trial court's interpretation of law.
However, the court of appeals declined to defer to the cooked-up
Draft NPS Management Policies, and, in August 2000 reversed the trial
court's order closing the road.
“The Tenth Circuit saw through the Park Service's scheme,”
said Hawthorne. “The closure was reversed and NPS should have
reopened the road under its BMP permit system.”
However, before the case could be remanded the NPS found a new pretext
to keep the road closed. Noting that the road area had significantly
re-vegetated during the two-year interval it was closed, NPS announced
that it was necessary to keep the road closed in order to perform
a new environmental assessment and reconsider its BMP.
“NPS undertook to determine the effects of vehicles on the
Salt Creek road while preventing vehicles from using the road,”
said Hawthorne. “It's absurd! How can the park service study
the effects of vehicles when vehicles are not allowed to use the road?
It's just another way to avoid complying with its own BMP.”
In the meantime, San Juan County asserted its ownership of the road
as a grandfathered public access right-of-way, disputing NPS’
control of the road. The county was added to the action and now USA-ALL
has sued NPS, its former litigation partner, to compel NPS to abide
by the existing BMP.
USA-All’s cross-claim alleges that NPS’ closure of the
road is arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, in excess of statutory
jurisdiction, and unsupported by substantial evidence.
USA-ALL is Utah's largest public lands access organization dedicated
to the equality of access to Utah's scenic lands.
