By Myrna Trauntvein
TN Correspondent
An easement agreement was approved that will allow a perpetual easement on seven roads in Juab County. The Easement Agreement was dated October 5, 2020 and was between the State of Utah, through the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) and Juab County. “SITLA manages certain trust lands in Juab County, Utah (the Easement Lands) that contain existing roads and related appurtenances and facilities, including without limitation culverts, cattle guards, and drainage run-outs (Existing Roads),” the agreement reads in part. The roads in question are known as Fish Wash 1A; Middle Range North Road; Mud Lake Reservoir Road; Pole Line South Road; Rocky Flat Loop Road; West Fish Canyon Road; and West Fish Spring 1 Road. Colby Park, county planning director, said that the roads in question were temporary roads before their transfer to BLM (Bureau of Land Management). “The county requested and SITLA agreed to grant the county an easement on, over, and across the easement lands for the continued use and maintenance of the existing roads as easement lands,” said Ryan Peters, county attorney. “Roads in Juab County have been an issue over the years,” said Byron Woodland, commissioner. He said that the county had fought to retain RS (Revised Statute) 2477 Roads. RS 2477(Section 8 of the Mining Act of 1866) is a federal law that authorized construction of roads across federal public lands, according to Utah’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office. This law helped settle the West for 110 years. Residents of Utah, visitors, pioneers, and settlers created and used thousands of roads across public lands for farming, ranching, hunting, recreating, mining and connecting communities. Many continue to use these routes daily and some occasionally or seasonally. Congress repealed R.S. 2477 in 1976, and enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). This law departed from pro-development land policy and established a preference for retaining lands in federal ownership. Nonetheless, Section 701 of FLPMA preserved all R.S. 2477 rights-of-way that existed at the time FLPMA was passed and preserved them for public use. “Today, the state and counties have to rely on R.S. 2477 to establish ownership of routes that have been used continuously for ten years prior to 1976,” said Woodland. “As long as the roads are secured under this easement agreement I will go along with it.” “Under terms of the agreement, SITLA grants the county a perpetual, non-exclusive easement on, over and across the easement lands for the continued use and maintenance of the existing roads for the purposes such existing roads are used as of the effective date,” said Peters. The county agrees to ensure that the existing roads remain open to the general public and to OHV use. Some other legal terms in the agreement are that road easements are subject to valid existing rights, whether or not of record, and that there will be no cost to SITLA because the county will perform all work in connection with the easement lands. Woodland made the motion to accept the agreement and Richard Hansen, acting as commission chairman, made the second and both voted in favor.
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