This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The request by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance that the Department of Interior restrict 1,000 miles of all-terrain-vehicle trails in the "Greater Canyonlands" redrock wilderness in southeast Utah only scrapes the surface of the problem ("Environmentalists seek 'Greater Canyonlands' protection," sltrib.com, March 16).
Each year Utah has more trails, with more incursions into fragile landscapes. Clearly, as SUWA proposes, off-road vehicles must be excluded totally from susceptible sites, such as riparian areas.
An equally prominent issue is the ascendance of the ORV trail. Utah is about 350 miles long and 270 miles wide and contains on the order of 30,000 miles of off-road vehicle trails (including those not officially sanctioned by Interior). That equals one 350-mile, north-south trail every 3 miles across our state.
The Department of Interior should redress this imbalance and restrict the our ORV trail system to a reasonable level.
Thomas Alan Kursar
Salt Lake City