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Utah Public Lands

A proposed regional transportation corridor in Washington County that has been a subject of debate for more than a decade took another controversial turn this week, with a lawsuit challenging federal agencies for breaking their own rules for review.

The Washington County Commission and County Attorney Eric Clarke are suing the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, asserting that the agencies improperly started and completed a biological analysis that effectively revoked approval of the Northern Corridor. It had been approved in 2021, but then the regional transportation route was taken off the table for further review.

“In March, (the Fish and Wildlife Service) withdrew its analysis that concluded the expansion of the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve fully offset the Northern Corridor’s impacts to the Mojave desert tortoise recovery efforts,” Clarke said. “They ignored the regulatory triggers that would allow for the reconsideration, and instead stated that the only justification for the reconsideration was a back-room deal with environmental groups.”

The four-lane, 4.5-mile highway would run through the federally protected Red Cliffs National Conservation Area and has been the subject of two heated on-site congressional field hearings in Washington County.

Read more about the highway and the lawsuit.

Understanding the last-minute IOC contract change for the 2034 Winter Games

The last-minute addition of a new termination clause in Utah’s contract to host the 2034 Winter Games has attracted a lot of attention. But it’s not the kind bid leaders expected when they agreed to the change sparked by a U.S. Justice Department investigation into an international doping controversy.

The new clause is being described as “blackmail” and promoting “dirty Games.”

What it does is allow the International Olympic Committee to take back the 2034 Games awarded on July 24 in Paris if “the supreme authority of the World Anti Doping Agency in the fight against doping is not fully respected or if the application of the World Anti-Doping Code is hindered or undermined” by the United States.

“I’ve obviously seen many opinions and stories,” Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, said after his recent return to the United States. “My hope is that people understand the two fundamental principles behind all this.”

Those principles, Bullock said, are supporting a “clean” Games where athletes compete without the advantage of performance-enhancing drugs, and working to resolve tensions between the Canadian-based World Anti Doping Agency, or WADA, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, that have been “festering for years.”

Read more about how Utah and the United States are planning to address the issue.

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Recently, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has significantly restricted access to Utah public lands and continues to restrict access. We need you to get involved. Learn how your access is being affected and voice your concerns to the BLM. Your input will help shape the future of Utah.

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Photo of the week

BY JEFFREY D. ALLRED

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Sister Harriet Uchtdorf gesture to attendees prior to the YSA Conference devotional at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. Read more.