ATVs threatening 10 Utah ‘treasures’

Brandon Loomis

Off-roaders and energy developers are threatening Factory Butte, Desolation Canyon, Dirty Devil Country and seven other Utah spots — along with the scenic and archaeological wonders they hold — according to a report Thursday by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Together, these 10 places make up SUWA’s list of the state’s “most threatened wilderness treasures.”

The group and its environmental and archaeological partners want new wilderness study areas to safeguard parts of southern and eastern Utah until Congress decides what to do with these and other lands included in the proposed Redrock Wilderness Act. But federal officials say such protection would require an open process with local input and public comment.

The chief threats, according to SUWA, are energy development and off-road vehicles that mar the land, disrupt the quiet and deliver looters to ancient American Indian archaeological sites.

“It really does impact your experience, but it also causes soil erosion,” said SUWA Associate Director Heidi McIntosh at a news conference Thursday in Salt Lake City’s Memory Grove Park. “It degrades the resource.”

SUWA accuses the U.S. Bureau of Land Management of approving, in six separate management plans, 20,000 miles of all-terrain-vehicle trails in eastern Utah without first taking an inventory of archaeological sites in those areas.

The group wants new protections for unspecified acreage at Cedar Mesa-Comb Ridge, Vermilion Cliffs-Upper Kanab Creek, Moquith Mountain, Dirty Devil Country, Glen Canyon-San Juan River, the Canyonlands basin and rims east of Canyonlands National Park, Labyrinth Canyon, Upper Desolation Canyon, Factory Butte and Price River-Long Spring Wash. Of those, only Moquith Mountain, near Kanab, currently is a wilderness study area.

Wilderness study areas are protected in the same relatively pristine states — generally barring vehicles — as they would be if Congress designated them for permanent protection.

McIntosh challenged the BLM to rescind what she called a Bush-era “no-more-wild” policy forbidding new wilderness study areas in Utah.

BLM’s Utah spokesman, Mitch Snow, said he could not comment about ATV trails’ potential to affect archaeological sites, because SUWA is also pressing that case in court.

A national BLM spokesman, Craig Leff, said he is unaware of any “no-more-wild” policy and that, as a rule, his agency designates lands for new wilderness study areas only with public participation.

“It’s an open process,” Leff said, noting he was not speaking directly to any of SUWA’s proposals because of the litigation.

Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, a frequent defender of public access, said he supports enforcement against off-roaders who actually leave designated trails, though he disagrees with SUWA about the definition of roads.

Many of the places the alliance wants to protect, he said, include historic roads claimed by counties.

“It’s never been my desire to see off-road vehicle use willy-nilly off of public roads,” Noel said. But he fears SUWA wants to shut down legitimate routes from which people might hike or hunt after parking.

“Their intention is to shut down any access outside of walking access,” he said.

Cedar Mesa, Desolation Canyon and others on the SUWA report are among the nation’s richest relic grounds, and most of the ancient sites have not been discovered, said Jerry Spangler, executive director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance.

He joined McIntosh in calling for greater protections because, he said, “people are using vehicles to reach sites that are then being looted.”

He said his group found 20 sites on Cedar Mesa in just 2 ½ days of looking. The same was true of a river trip in Desolation Canyon. Yet the BLM isn’t living up to its duty to protect antiquities when it puts designated ATV trails literally across ancient homes — as Spangler said he saw, with some stone walls knocked over by vehicles.

“They just don’t make 5,000-year-old sites anymore,” he said.

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Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/49898838-76/wilderness-utah-suwa-treasures.html.csp?page=1

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