By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
RS 2477 (Revised Statutes 2477) rights-of-way are of major concern to Juab County Commissioners.
They are property rights originally granted by the federal government to establish the transportation network essential to settlement of the western frontier.
Generally, these rights-of-way grants were made to local governments and are held in trust by them for the public.
Today, they continue to provide virtually all the public access to and across the hundreds of millions of acres of public and private lands in the West and Alaska.
“We are still working on the RS 2477 roads and are planning a meeting in Salt Lake City that you should plan to attend,” said Brent Gardner, Utah Association of Counties.
Gardner met with Juab County Commissioners to discuss ways in which the UAC could help county commissions.
RS 2477 does not have a “just compensation” clause, so there is no cost to counties that use this law to create shared access.
Landowners who erect gates and refuse to provide access do so at their own risk.
“We have most of the needed affidavits,” said LuWayne Walker, commissioner.
Gardner said the affidavits are needed.
Jared Eldridge, county attorney, was assigned by the commission to attend a three to four hour meeting being held on the state level which will focus on roads.
“In the 2007 general session, UAC filed an amicus curiae brief in the Utah Supreme Court urging the Court to find that rural county roads are valid RS 2477 roads if the public used them for 10 or more years prior to 1976, even though such roads (1) may have been sparsely and intermittently traveled during that time due to low population numbers, (2) may have been intermittently impassable during that time due to winter seasonal conditions, and (3) may have been temporarily closed at times by adjoining landowners to move livestock as long as such closures do not actually disrupt the already sparse and intermittent patterns of public use on that road,” said Gardner.
“We have 250 Class B roads and 1,600 Class D roads,” said Walker. “Most of the B roads are done.”
Gardner said that in 2007, UAC also provided advice and consultation primarily to Millard and Juab Counties and to a lesser degree Tooele and Salt Lake Counties, regarding issues surrounding a NEPA Environmental Impact Study underway in the BLM Nevada State Office, concerning the Las Vegas sponsored future groundwater pumping and pipeline project in White Pine and Lincoln Counties, Nevada.
UAC also provided general assistance throughout the year to county commissioners who sit on the State Public Lands Policy Coordinating Committee and the State and County Joint RS 2477 Client Committee.
“UAC assisted County Commissioner members of the RS 2477 Client Committee devise a plan and strategy which the Committee ultimately adopted, to move the 2477 project forward in 2008,” said Gardner.
UAC also filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court urging that BLM not make substantial changes to land use categories previously established in a Resource Management Plan, without first going through an orderly process to amend that Resource Management Plan.
To be initially considered as an RS 2477 road, a road must meet the following minimum criteria: Existed prior to 1976; an be traveled by cars and trucks; is not in a national park; is not in a wilderness area; is not in a wilderness study area; is not in a fish and wildlife refuge and can not undergo expansion and remains “As is, where is.”
In addition to meeting these requirements, the MOU provides for an open, administrative process whereby each road considered for application will include readily available information so that anyone can comment throughout the process.
