David DeMille

The Spectrum

U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, is pushing for legislation that would mandate federal land managers to step aside and make room for a controversial roadway that would cross through habitat of the endangered Mojave desert tortoise north of St. George.

“This is an important bill for my district. It’s an important bill for lands issues in the west. But perhaps most importantly it’s important because it helps restore the balance of power between Washington, D.C., and local interests,” Stewart said Tuesday during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands.

His bill, H.R. 2423, would order the federal government to “grant any necessary rights-of-way for the northern transportation route,” more commonly known as the Northern Corridor, as drawn up by county transportation planners and stick to the protocols for authorizing utility lines as included in a 1996 plan created for the tortoise habitat.

Stewart argued the bill seeks to clarify directions included in a 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which directed the Bureau of Land Management to “identify” a route for the northern corridor as part of its planning process for the area but did not explicitly describe an exact route or mandate that a road be allowed.

Local elected officials have fought for years to build a highway across the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, with planners arguing it is needed to stave off major road congestion expected to come with population growth and new development projected in and around St. George and could be done without significantly impacting the tortoise.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Washington County Commissioner Victor Iverson argued the roadway is necessary to keep up with the anticipated demand. State population projections forecast the county to grow from an estimated population of 160,000 today to nearly 200,000 by 2020 and to nearly twice that by 2040.

BLM finalizes public lands management plans

Iverson argued that with good planning the county could build the road and still protect sensitive habitat.

“We take care of (the tortoise) and we will build this road in a way that allow the recovery of the tortoise to continue,” he said.

But the roadway would have to pass through publicly-owned federal lands overlaid with multiple layers of environmental protection, including the multi-governmental Red Cliffs reserve and a designated National Conservation Area.

Late last year, the Bureau of Land Management released new management plans for the area that made construction of the highway seem unlikely, with rules that required any roadway or other utility project not adversely affect sensitive habitat.

All about a highway: the Northern Corridor debate

“The plain reading of the statute — especially in light of the legislative history for the underlying bill — make clear that the law does not direct the BLM to establish a northern transportation route within the NCA, particularly if such a route is determined to be in conflict with the purposes for which the NCA was established,” according to a note in the appendices to the agency’s plan for the Red Cliffs NCA.

Rather than describing a dedicated transportation and utility corridor that could accommodate a northern corridor, the proposals instead set aside a swath of land as an “avoidance area” that could potentially allow a highway but only under certain conditions.

BLM proposes new plans for public lands

The BLM defines and avoidance area as “an area designated on a land use plan for which use for a (right-of-way) should be avoided if at all possible,” but it does allow for a corridor to be designated when the agency developed a more specific travel plan for the area.

The plan proposal suggests it could only authorize such rights-of-way “when the project-specific NEPA analysis indicates that the construction and operation of the facility would not result in the take of federally-listed species; the adverse modification of designated critical habitats; or adverse effects to (National Register of Historic Places) listed or eligible properties,” in addition to strict construction criteria that would minimize environmental impacts.

Federal lands fight comes to St. George

Stewart’s proposal could bypass all of that analysis, forcing the agency and others, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to work around the idea of the highway moving in.

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