Green light on rural roads

Utah is on the verge of taking control of hundreds, if not thousands, of rural roads that crisscross public lands under a landmark agreement signed by the Bush administration and Gov. Mike Leavitt on Wednesday.

While in Washington, D.C., Leavitt met with Interior Secretary Gale Norton to sign a memorandum of understanding that sets up a road map whereby the state and federal government can settle their long-standing disputes over roads on federal land.

"Today is a notable day in the history of rural Utah," Leavitt said during a telephone conference from Washington, D.C., following the signing. "I signed, on behalf of the state, a memorandum that spells out . . . an administrative process that will allow us to begin resolving RS2477 roads in Utah."

But critics are calling it a huge land grab.

"We're looking at a giveaway," said Heidi McIntosh, conservation director with Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "This agreement may look harmless on the surface, but there is a bulldozer behind the fine print."

At issue are the so-called "RS2477" roads, created through a provision in the Mining Act of 1866 that allowed states to claim rights of way across federal land. The law was initially intended to give prospectors easy access to their claims as a way to help settle the West.

Since that time, thousands of roads and trails have been created on federal lands, some of them nothing more than a four-wheel-drive track through the desert. The law was repealed in 1976, but any road in place prior to that time would still qualify as a local right of way under the old law.

Under the agreement, the state would not claim any routes inside national parks, refuges and wilderness areas. In turn, the Interior Department has agreed to recognize roads traveled by trucks and cars that existed in Utah prior to 1976. The state couldn't take an existing dirt road and make it bigger.

"We are accepting it as it is and where it is," Leavitt said.

Utah will submit to the Bureau of Land Management a list of roads it is claiming under the new agreement. It will do so by applying to the BLM for a "recordable disclaimer of interest," which essentially says the federal government does not own a particular road.

The BLM will review the request and potentially allow for public comment before making a final decision.

Conservation groups and other critics are skeptical. They say rural counties in Utah have been trying to claim ownership of roads in national parks and on other sensitive lands.