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Off-Road Vehicle Use on Utah Public Lands
Increasing numbers of off-road vehicle users are driving off designated roads and trails on public lands, destroying wildlife habitat, polluting air and water, and damaging pristine wildlands.
In 2000, Earthjustice£r Denver office sued the Bureau of Land Management for failing to enforce ORV management plans on BLM lands throughout Utah. Since the suit was filed, the BLM has closed more than 100,000 acres of roadless areas to ORV use, and has limited ORVs to designated trails in many other areas. In addition, the lawsuit has pushed the BLM to monitor the impacts of ORV use on roadless areas in Utah for the first time in years.
Although the BLM has made such improvements, our litigation to protect Utah£r wildlands continues. On July 21, 2003, the Bush administration appealed to the Supreme Court to throw out a lower court ruling confirming the public£r right to step in to enforce wilderness protection on public lands. The administration would like the ruling thrown out, which would have the practical effect of allowing BLM to ignore its duty to protect millions of acres of wildlands in the West without having to worry that the courts or the public would step in.
The argument originated in a case in Utah, where the government admitted that illegal ORV use was damaging wilderness study areas across the state. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver held that citizens have the right to force BLM to protect these areas, as the law clearly requires. If the administration wins the current appeal, there would be no such course of action for citizens to make sure land remained protected, or rules were enforced.
Earthjustice
426 17th Street, 6th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612-2820
Phone: (510) 550-6700
Fax: (510) 550-6740
Email: eajus@earthjustice.org
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations and communities.
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