Heat is turned up over wilds deal

Environmental groups this week stepped up their challenge of last year's settlement between the state of Utah and the federal government over protecting wilderness.

In a filing to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and nine other organizations argued their case against the April 11, 2003, consent decree that removed wilderness protection from nearly 6 million acres of federal land in Utah.

The deal made by Gov. Mike Leavitt with Interior Secretary Gale Norton stated the federal government would no longer protect potential wilderness from development while waiting for Congress to determine if the lands should be formally declared as wilderness.

The settlement ended a legal battle between the state and federal governments that began in 1996. It sets aside interim wilderness protection given to nearly 6 million acres of federal land in Utah. Conservationists here had identified 9 million acres they believed qualified as wilderness.

The settlement left 3.2 million acres of federal lands in Utah as potential wilderness, areas identified by a Bureau of Land Management study completed in 1991. That study has been criticized by both sides in the debate.

Among the arguments the environmental groups made in their filing was that the agreement was unconstitutional because it binds the BLM under future administrations.

Also questioned was the authority of the court to approve a consent decree that eliminated the BLM's ability to conduct wilderness inventories as well as to designate and protect wilderness study areas.