Debates over off-road vehicle closures are heating up as the Bureau of Land Management considers banning cross-country travel in a large region of Wayne County and orders a halt to off-roading in a smaller area of San Juan County.

The Wayne County controversy is the hotter one as it involves the possible restriction of travel to established routes in an area of 166,900 acres, more than 260 square miles, near Factory Butte. However, according to the BLM, cross-country use is concentrated in a few thousand acres.

The well-known Factory Butte formation, not far from the Dirty Devil River, is about 15 miles northwest of Hanksville. Environmentalists are asking that the restrictions extend to close to the town.

In a separate matter, an emergency closure announced Monday covers 1,835 acres (nearly three square miles), south of Bluff.

Factory Butte

Lola Bird, a public affairs specialist in the BLM's state office in Salt Lake City, said the BLM has received a package of information concerning the Factory Butte proposed closure. "No determination has been made yet" on the petition for closure, she said.

"We're in the process of developing the land-use plan for the entire Richfield field office area," and consideration of a closure there is part of the review, she said. A draft plan covering the field office area is due out in June.

Ray Bloxham, field inventory specialist for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in Salt Lake City, said SUWA is among those seeking limitations to off-highway use in the Factory Butte region.

"Overall, you definitely have visual destruction of the area" from vehicle tracks off the roads, he said. Also, "the vehicle users that are out there are going into new regions and impacting new areas, including streambeds" and other sites.

SUWA is not seeking a total closure of the region but to have use limited to existing roads. Also, an area near Factory Bench Road would remain open to cross-country driving, he said.

"It protects that type of recreation experience in that area," and the region becomes more manageable for the BLM, he said. The Emery-Wayne county line runs through the vicinity, and on the Emery County side, BLM land is already closed to cross-country driving, he added.

Restrictions should reach to the vicinity of Hanksville to ensure that off-road vehicle use doesn't shift there once the immediately vicinity of Factory Butte is closed, he said.

Paul W. Mortensen, a Salt Lake lawyer who represents all-terrain vehicle users, said the vehicles are not causing serious erosion damage to the barren hills around Factory Butte. He said the soil crust tends to recover quickly as fine grains of the silty material cement together.