(from www.deseretnews.com, June 15, 2000)

Thursday, June 15, 2000
Immediate ORV ban is sought

Coalition asks U.S. judge to act on 7 proposed wilds areas

By Donna M. Kemp
Deseret News staff writer

Environmental groups have asked a federal judge for an immediate ban on off-highway vehicles in seven proposed wilderness areas in Utah until a trial is held next year to decide whether the roads should be closed permanently.

A coalition of groups ranging from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance to Friends of the Abajos filed a preliminary injunction Wednesday in U.S. District Court seeking to close the areas the groups say have been particularly hard-hit by off-highway vehicles.

"These are areas that are in the most direst of straits," said SUWA attorney Steve Bloch.

Targeted are areas proposed or designated as official wilderness study areas by the Bureau of Land Management. They are the Parunuweap east of Zion National Park, Moquith Mountain near Kanab, Behind the Rock west of Moab, and Sids Mountain, Muddy Creek, including Factory Butte, and Wild Horse Mesa in the San Rafael Swell. Also on the list is the Indian Creek proposed wilderness study area near Canyonlands National Park.

"It is a very targeted, well-thought-out motion that is really looking only at these handful of areas right now that need to receive the utmost level of protection from BLM, and they're simply not," Bloch said.

BLM spokesman Glenn Foreman declined comment. But Brian Hawthorne, director of the Utah Shared Access Alliance, was clearly frustrated by the move.

"It's a slap in the face," he said. Members of his group have voluntarily erected barricades and put up "No Motorized Vehicle" signs in many of the sensitive areas, he added.

Hawthorne fears the motion will be counterproductive. "This particular action is a stick in the spokes," he said.

U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball will decide sometime in July whether to grant the injunction.

The environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the BLM last fall for failing to ban off-highway vehicles in areas where the damage has already been documented. The suit alleges that the BLM has consistently ignored its own rules and procedures for determining legal off-road vehicle routes on the 23 million acres of federal land it manages in Utah.

Trial has been set for May 2001.

"We can't wait until the trial," said SUWA conservation director Heidi McIntosh. "We want the roads closed now pending a resolution of the case."

The damage caused by off-road vehicles has been a contention for environmentalists fighting for wilderness protection. They have documented alleged off-highway vehicle abuses that have resulted in soil erosion and vegetation destruction in the sensitive, arid desert.

Yet Hawthorne disputes some of their claims, saying they don't support the facts. "They think a track in the sand is damage."

It's not just the scars in the land that are a sore point for environmentalists. It's also the roar of the all-terrain vehicles.

"Many people go to these wilderness areas to find silence and relief from the noise and hubbub of modern, urban life," McIntosh explained.

"We're trying to create reasonable balance for all users of Utah's public
lands."

E-MAIL: donna@desnews.com