Nestled on the Utah-Arizona border, a dirt road winds through House Rock Valley toward The Wave, one of the most stunning landscapes of the American West.
The Wave is a swirling sculpture of red, orange and cream sandstone, and it has drawn visitors from around the world. For years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) prevented the county from doing the kinds of projects necessary to keep the road safe and passable. Vehicles routinely got stuck in the mud, and countless families were forced to abandon their excursion to see The Wave.
So, over BLM’s objections, Kane County had to get a court order to install the much-needed culverts to make the road passable again. Problem solved — except the federal government continued to fight them over the road, apparently angry that Kane County stepped up and did what should have been done long ago.
To this day, a decades-long legal battle continues for the legal rights of way over thousands of roads in Utah, like the road to The Wave. This legal battle isn’t just about maintaining roads. All across rural Utah, access to public lands and the roads that reach them is simply the difference between opportunity and isolation.
Ranchers rely on these roads to reach grazing allotments. Without them, they can’t tend their land, herd cattle or feed the country. First responders need these roads to fight wildfires and conduct life-saving search and rescue operations. Utah families need them to experience our breathtaking landscapes — like The Wave — that, by law, are their right to experience.
A deteriorating road shouldn’t stand between a family and the public land that is their right to visit. The outdoors shouldn’t be off limits to those with limited mobility, older Utahns or parents with young children, simply because a road has been allowed to deteriorate. Public land is only truly public when the public can access it, whether one is a rancher, a senior citizen or a grandkid seeing the desert for the first time. Public lands are, by law, intended to be multiple-use. But if they cannot be accessed, by default, they become “nonuse.”
That’s why the Office of the Utah Attorney General has spent years advocating for Utahns’ access to these lands — in courtrooms, with federal agencies and even at the U.S. Supreme Court.
We supported the Uinta Basin Railway because rural communities need economic opportunities to grow their towns, fund schools and provide employment. We are fighting for roads in Utah aimed at easing congestion, enhancing emergency response and connecting residents with jobs, schools and health care. We are doing this in spite of recent lawsuits from environmental groups that obviously prefer litigation over improved access to public lands or even improved air quality.
The pattern is all too familiar: spend years studying the project, conduct environmental reviews and then obtain federal approval. Only to later have it brought to a grinding halt with clever litigation designed to run out the clock and — once again — prevent citizens from accessing Utah’s public lands.
My office is fighting for this access in the courts because Utah’s rural communities simply cannot prosper with this kind of uncertainty.
Ranchers who have worked the same land for generations shouldn’t have to wonder with each passing year whether a distant court or federal agency will sever the connection between their family and their family’s livelihood. They need stable, dependable access, not access that vanishes the moment someone files a lawsuit or a federal agency decides to change its priorities. Kane County’s decades-long fight over these rights of way, often called R.S. 2477 roads, shows how lengthy these battles are and what is at stake.
Some frame this as a conflict between conservation and access. That is a clever but false dichotomy. Roads can be maintained without damaging watersheds or wildlife. Infrastructure can be built without destroying the beauty that makes this state worth fighting for. Ranchers can keep their access while preserving the landscapes they depend on. Many ranchers have done precisely that for generations, long before agencies decided to regulate them.
Utah will fight for its rural communities because abandoning them isn’t an option. The Wave remains breathtaking and worthy of the drive. Our task is to provide support for counties like Kane County, which are trying to keep those roads open: for the hiker, the family and especially those who have worked this land long before it ever became a bucket-list destination.