The state of Utah and Emery County are taking on the federal government, including the Bureau of Land Management, over some unpaved roads in central Utah.

The lawsuit claims seven roads closed down in the past couple of years under a new travel plan from the BLM should be open to the public under Revised Statute 2477, a law adopted in the Civil War era that guaranteed states and counties they could use roads they built across federal lands.

"You're looking at real roads with track records of uses by the public in the past," said Ed Ogilvie, an assistant attorney general involved in the suit, "and the state and county want to preserve those traditional uses."

Although the law was repealed in 1976, the lawsuit points out the repealing legislation protects use of roads built before the new law passed.

But Utah BLM spokesman Don Banks, although he declined to comment on the lawsuit because he had not seen it, said the 12-year process that led to closing the roads was open and transparent, and Emery County officials agreed to it. He also said a lawsuit is one of two ways to legitimately establish rights to the roads.

Heidi McIntosh, conservation director with Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, spoke more forcefully against the suit.

"RS2477 is just a red herring," she said. "You see, there's another agenda. It's about preventing the federal government's ability to protect these areas."

McIntosh criticized the state for allegedly spending $12 million on legal expenses for a "cadre of lawyers" to block the government from protecting land in many places across the state.

"They want to be able to drive in an unlimited way across federal lands," she said. "We look at it as there should be places people can go and not see and hear the sights and sounds from vehicles scarring the land."

But the lawyers at the attorney general's office said the suit is at least partially about providing access to the beauty of of the area.

"Some (of the roads) have have very beautiful scenery," said Jaysen Oldroyd, another assistant attorney general. "Others lead to livestock or ranching. All of them lead to certain destinations, like linking up with another road."

Oldroyd said one of them leads to a popular site where an old settler supposedly leaped over a canyon to escape from a posse chasing him.

Ogilvie said the policy of closing down RS2477-protected roads dates back to the era of Bruce Babbitt, President Clinton's secretary of the interior. Ogilvie said under Babbitt, the BLM decided to disregard RS2477 protection.

"They basically admitted to us that they weren't going to be recognizing RS2477 roads," Oldroyd said.

They filed the lawsuit this past week in district court.

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E-mail: dhinckley@desnews.com