Utah’s slow-moving and often meandering effort to gain title over thousands of roads through public lands reached a milepost last week.
On July 23, a federal judge determined House Rock Valley Road and Hole-in-the-Rock Road meet the definition of highways under RS 2477, a long-repealed law that allows states and counties to retain title to rights of way through federal lands if they can prove they were regularly used prior to the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
The win means the state and Kane and Garfield counties can treat and manage them like other county roads. The parties had asked the court to expedite a decision on the two roads specifically due to “alleged unsafe travel conditions,” according to the ruling.
“This victory supports our ongoing efforts to protect, improve, and enhance access to public lands for all Utahns,” the Utah attorney general’s office wrote in a news release Wednesday.
Utah policymakers have used frontier-era law to lay claim to more than 12,000 roads spiderwebbing across public lands held by federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management. But the move has been expensive, slow and bumpy.
The state filed dozens of lawsuits along with multiple counties for RS 2477 rights of way in 2012. Only a few of the routes have been resolved. To better navigate the legal labyrinth of cases remaining, the federal court selected 15 specific roads in Kane County as “bellwether” examples that will guide future rulings.
U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups didn’t hold a bench trial on the bellwether case until 2020, however, and last week’s decision on House Rock Valley and Hole-in-the-Rock roads represents the court’s first ruling on the matter. It will almost certainly be appealed.
Waddoups’ interim ruling from last week was only five pages long. The judge noted a lengthier decision is coming that will address the other bellwether roads, and that his decision on Hole-in-the-Rock and House Rock Valley roads was not indicative of how the court will rule on the remaining claims. Waddoups also indicated he would provide a longer legal analysis and explanation for his ruling last week in the forthcoming memorandum.
“It’s one decision on a much longer path,” said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which was granted partial intervenor status and opposes the state’s RS 2477 lawsuits.
Utah has spent millions on public lands battles, including its fight for rights of way, with few wins to date. The attorney general’s office argues the state needs to control the tangle of roads running through BLM land and some national monuments so Utahns have access to recreation like ATV riding, as well as routes for firefighting and wildlife management.
SUWA does not dispute all the state’s RS 2477 claims. But it calls the majority of them “hoax highways” that are nothing more than streambeds, cow paths or “two tracks in the desert.”
Congress enacted RS 2477 as part of the Mining Act of 1866 to help settle the West and promote mining, ranching and homesteading. After its repeal in 1976, Congress allowed states and counties to continue using and maintaining roads across federal land if they could prove at least 10 years of prior continuous use.
The attorney general’s office, however, says the federal government’s slow movement on the claims has meant the state and counties cannot grade or repair important routes for recreation and public safety.
“Local management of these roads,” the office wrote in its statement, “leads to better access and safety.”
SUWA counters, however, that the state wants many of these “roads to nowhere” declared highways to prevent congressional roadless and wilderness designations, and the restricted land uses that come with them.
“It’s really a facet of the state’s larger efforts,” Bloch said, “to decide who gets to call the shots on federal lands.”
Beyond the bellwether case that involves roads in Kane and Garfield counties, Utah has pending lawsuits over roads across public lands in Beaver, Box Elder, Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, Grand, Iron, Juab, Millard, Piute, Rich, San Juan, Sevier, Tooele, Uintah, Utah, Washington and Wayne counties. The network of claimed highways totals nearly 36,000 miles.