Can it be true that the National Park Service, with no analysis or input from citizens or national park visitors, is planning to open all primary access and back roads in Utah’s national parks to OHVs for the ostensible reason that this will align policy in the parks with a Utah law passed in 2008, which allows OHVs on state and county roads if these vehicles are street legal?
This is crazy.
The roads in Utah’s national parks are not just any roads. They travel through spectacular and fragile landscapes and are jammed. Take a look at the webcams in Arches. More seriously, OHVs are made to drive off road — an easy detour. In the fragile desert of Utah’s parks, this is ecocide. Remember the warnings: “Don’t Bust the Crust.”
And imagine the noise.
This policy caters to narrow interests. Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, convicted in 2015 of trespass and conspiracy for riding an OHV into Recapture Canyon after it was closed to protect cultural resources, evidently has Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s ear. He thinks OHVs should have the right to go anywhere and everywhere. This is just one more assault on our democracy and our public lands.
Susan Jacobson, Denver