By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The Weiss Highway, which travels through Juab County's
West Desert is the first claim by state officials for right
of way through federally managed lands.
The Highway which starts at Highway 6 and by the Sand
Dune extends west to Snake Valley Road. A portion of the
road is paved.
Juab County Commission Chair Wm. Boyd Howarth was on
hand Wednesday for an afternoon news conference at the Utah
headquarters of the Utah Bureau of Land Management, where
Gov. Olene Walker formally submitted a claim for the Weiss
Highway to the BLM.
"The county commission has been fighting for the right
to some of our roads for quite a while and has listed our RS
1477 roads," said Howarth.
In fact, several times commissioners traveled with the
county road superintendent and, together with the
superintendent and the county administrator, worked to
document all of the roads in the county.
Therefore, Howarth said, the commissioners were
heartened that the Weiss highway which has great importance
to the county was the first claim under a memorandum of
understanding signed between former Gov. Mike Leavitt and
Interior Secretary Gale Norton last year.
"The roads were built for a purpose, and they were
maintained," Howarth said. "We hope and pray they'll remain
open for multiple uses."
Howarth has pointed out, on several occasions, that
the RS 2477 statute was intended to give prospectors easy
access to their claims by granting use of rights of way for
roads and trails over federal lands that are not reserved
for public use.
It was repealed in 1976, but any road in place prior
to that time still qualifies as a local right-of-way under
the old law.
The memorandum allows the state to gain title to a
road if it meets a defined set of standards.
To qualify, the road must have existed prior to 1976,
the road must support car and truck travel, the road must
not be in a reserved or protected area such as a national
park, refuge or Indian reservation.
The Weiss Highways meets all the criteria. The road
has existed for decades, at one time leading to a Civilian
Conservation Corps camp, and has long been used by miners,
law enforcement officers and those who enjoy outdoor
recreation.
It is likely that most of the early claims the Walker
administration will seek involve roads where the state's
claims are irrefutable.
On the Weiss Highway, for example, the county has
satellite photography, digitized maps and legal affidavits
from old-timers.
All this information helped expedite and solidify the
claims of the county and state.
The Weiss Highway clearly meets the criteria set down
by Leavitt and Norton.
The state could potentially submit thousands of claims
for right of way to roads under the RS 2477 statute during
coming years,
Many of those roads, like the Wiess Highway, are
needed travel routes that should be protected," Howarth
said.
Since the road has been paved for many years, it is
not as controversial as some others roadways might prove to
be in the future. Therefore, the claim is not expected to be
disputed.
Walker said she was submitting the application with a
large sense of relief and said that while it may take years
to finish the claims, it felt great to get started.
"It's been years that we've been talking about this,
and we've been looking forward to the day we submitted that
first application," she said. "I don't know if we should
celebrate or stand up and cheer or what."
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