ST. GEORGE — The Bureau of Land Management recently released a “Blueprint for 21st Century Outdoor Recreation.” 

It is available for public review through a link at this website: BLM seeks public input, new plan recreation management.

As a retired, former 15-year BLM employee, I reviewed this document and I generally support its recommendations for BLM recreation-related planning. But I know that many positive documents like this often end up gathering dust on office shelves rather than advancing tangible results.

Here in Washington County, where I’ve lived for over the past 20 years, I’ve seen the rapid increase in recreational uses and related environmental impacts on BLM lands in the county.

There are more people using local trails and trailhead parking lots are more often than not full. Outdoor recreation on BLM lands is very important and can be very positive. It has great public health benefits and provides a significant economic boost for recreation and tourism-related jobs and businesses.

Public lands are also known to increase proximate private property values because many people wish to live next to or near these lands.

Many people may consider recreation to be relatively environmentally benign compared to other human land uses. But this is not necessarily true. Every recreational use has some level of direct, indirect, and/or cumulative environmental impact.

From my experience, OHV recreation tends to be the most damaging to natural and cultural resources and most disruptive to other visitors who seek nature and solitude. On the other hand, hikers practicing Leave No Trace likely have the least impacts and conflicts with other users.

But even hikers can scare sensitive wildlife species and step on and kill necessary biological soil crusts that take decades to recover. In light of these impacts, BLM needs to be proactive in planning so that increasing recreation will have the least damaging impacts and that unavoidable impacts will be properly mitigated.

But there is more, recreation planning must be strongly linked to transportation planning. Residents generally need to travel some distance on BLM lands to recreate on BLM lands. This means use of motorized or non-motorized routes or trails.

BLM generally goes through a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to develop a comprehensive Travel Management Plan (TMP). TMPs are used to officially designate which routes and trails are open for public use, open with seasonal or other restrictions, or closed to public use.

The NEPA process includes BLM applying required “minimization criteria” when considering route designations and developing alternative route networks for consideration. These criteria help to identify where routes may harm or threaten sensitive natural or cultural resources. The public then has the opportunity to review the NEPA TMP analysis and provide input.

Unfortunately, despite the high and growing recreational pressures and impacts, the local BLM Saint George Field Office (SGFO) has failed to conduct the required TMP planning. In the enacted Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 (OPLMA), Congress specifically directed that the BLM SGFO prepare and adopt a comprehensive TMP within five years, by 2014.

Among other reasons, this TMP was needed to stop damaging OHV route proliferation, including in designated critical habitat for threatened Mojave desert tortoises. This TMP was to include the identification of northern transportation routes (the controversial Northern Corridor Highway was since approved through the BLM Red Cliffs National Conservation Area outside of the TMP process) and the proposed High Desert OHV trail portion in the county (also proceeding outside of the TMP process).

It is now nine years past the statutory deadline and the BLM SGFO has not even officially begun the TMP process. Harmful route proliferation continues, tortoises and their critical habitats continue to be jeopardized. A series of ad hoc BLM decisions are foreclosing planning options and undermining the potential benefits of the TMP.

On the one hand, it is probably good that BLM nationally is looking at improving its recreation planning and future management. On the other hand, there is a fundamental disconnect when BLM’s SGFO can blatantly ignore a statutory TMP deadline for nine years and counting, and continue with ad hoc decisions that are contrary to Congressional direction.

Why is there zero BLM accountability? Where is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that is supposed to be ensuring BLM tortoise protection under the Endangered Species Act? Does the public care that linked transportation and recreation planning is absent and that this will likely lead to more future chaos, user conflicts, and resource damage?

I wish BLM would spend less time on warm and fuzzy policy documents and more time on actually fulfilling its legal requirements.   Please join me in urging the BLM SGFO to proceed to develop this long overdue and government-mandated TMP.

Submitted by Richard Spotts, St. George, Utah.

Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edits for technical style and formatting.

Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting.