Bureau of Land Management officials have begun poring over vintage maps and land records, trying to decide where roads existed throughout Utah before Oct. 21, 1976.
Determining where dirt roads were, or weren't, on a particular day nearly 15 years ago might seem an academic exercise even for a historian - but it actually has a down-to-earth practicality.On that date, Congress abolished an earlier law that gave road-building rights of way to anyone who wanted to build a road across federal land that was not withdrawn for other purposes. Any route established at that point is eligible for protection as a public right of way.
The repealed law - Revised Statute 2477, which was passed in 1866 - was cited recently in a federal court decision giving Garfield County control over the controversial Burr Trail. Environmentalists sued over improvements on the route but lost because the county had a right of way established prior to Oct. 21, 1976.
The old law was "a standing offer to the public and local government to establish the transportation corridors they deemed necessary," said BLM spokesman Don Banks in Salt Lake City. "It was one of many post-Civil War era laws passed by the federal government to encourage settlement of the West."
Many counties have expressed interest in claiming rights of way on roads they say were in existence before the passage of the Federal Land and Policy Act of 1976, which repealed RS 2477.
"Various wilderness proposals, new BLM regional plans and several recent, highly charged controversies regarding roads and public access like the Burr Trail are pushing RS 2477 onto the front burner," said Sheldon Wimmer, manager of the BLM's Henry Mountain Resource Area, based in Hanksville.
"Garfield and Wayne counties have asserted that many of the roads within the BLM's 2.6 million-acre Henry Mountain Resource Area are part of the public highway system," he said.
Where evidence is lacking, the BLM will reject the county's claims, Banks said. He predicted that disputes over the rulings will probably end up in federal court.
For information on routes under review - or to offer information that would help the BLM make a determination, write to Wimmer at the Henry Mountain Resource Area, P.O. Box 99, Hanksville, UT 84734. The BLM wants information by Oct. 15.