Environmentalists squared off with off-road enthusiasts about the possible effects of the proposed Red Rock Wilderness Act in the Hinckley Caucus Room on Wednesday.
The Red Rock Wilderness Act is a proposed bill now facing the U.S. Congress that would convert 40 percent of the Utah Bureau of Land Management lands to wilderness area, protecting it from development and motorized access.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance maintains that the bill is necessary to protect BLM lands from harmful use with off-road vehicles. Meanwhile, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a group that fights for motor access to public trails, says the bill deprives users of access to public lands and unfairly keeps motorized vehicles out of the most scenic areas.
"It's too bad that the federal agencies are trying to take away access to public land," said Brian Hawthorne, public lands director for the Blue Ribbon Coalition. "There should be another way to protect lands. Wilderness areas are outdated."
Heidi McIntosh, conservation director for SUWA, said that the Coalition's reaction to the Red Rock Act is like having a pie, eating 60 percent of it, and then not wanting to share the other 40 percent. She maintains that protected wilderness areas are the best way to protect the land.
The groups agreed that the BLM is making progress in building trails that help to keep motorized users off protected areas.
Another area they agreed on was enforcement of trail regulations.
Both said that the BLM needs to work more with other government and private entities to crack down on trail misuse.
The sides also discussed how to access backcountry roads. Under current state law, a road that is on public, non-wilderness lands and has been in use for 10 years will remain open.
The debate is about what classifies a road as "in use" for 10 years.
McIntosh presented a series of pictures of road claims; many were overgrown and hard to identify. She said these claims are "not really roads."
McIntosh added that motorized users destroy the vegetation and create new roads and trails that didn't exist before.
Hawthorne said debating over pictures of roads in wilderness areas is pointless because a road that is heavily used during certain times of the year can be overgrown with vegetation at other times of the year.
Despite their differences, both Hawthorne and McIntosh spoke of compromise and condemned any hostility between the groups.
Hawthorne said that the debate between the two groups will become more confrontational when it comes to classifying the individual access areas if the act is passed.
d.gardiner@chronicle.utah.edu
