By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
County commissioners voted to meet with David Leavitt,
county attorney, and discuss a road improvement project
proposed by a mining company before agreeing to sign a
letter prepared by the attorney to be sent to the BLM.
"The concept is simple," said Leavitt. "If we agree
that this is our road, and we care enough about the
principal involved to claim our road, we send the
letter."
Wm. Boyd Howarth, commission chair, and Joseph
Bernini, commissioner, agreed to table the request to mail a
letter to BLM until they had an opportunity to review the
legal aspects.
Howarth said he did not like looking as though he were
"dumber that dirt" and wanted to understand the
ramifications of a commission decision before making it.
"I think I need a little more clarification," said
Bernini.
Robert Steele, commissioner, and Robert Garrett,
county road superintendent, disagreed about giving
permission in the past to the mining company, Newco Guyana
Inc., to improve a road to their mine.
The road leads from the Weiss highway to a mine
operated by Newco Guyana Inc.
Steele is involved in the mine and, as a
representative of the company, had to excuse himself from
voting on the issue and had to declare his interest in
Newco.
"We apologize for any concern the work may have caused
you and realize that the county should have informed you of
its intentions prior to commencing work on the road,"
Leavitt wrote in a letter he had prepared to be sent to BLM
officials.
In the letter, if it had been signed, commissioners
would agree to ratify the verbal agreement which had been
made.
"A year ago, Newco and the county reached an agreement
regarding the improvements to the road," said Leavitt. "In
general terms, Newco agreed to make the improvements to the
road according to county specifications if the county
provided the material."
The verbal agreement was reduced to writing, Leavitt
said, ratifying all provisions of the agreement an all
actions pertaining to the resurfacing of the road.
Steele said he had made it clear, in the past, that
the intent was to improve the road.
"I talked to you, (commissioners and road
superintendent) about using gravel from the county pit and I
told you which road it was and I told you that road was
being improved."
He said he had even pointed the road out as the group
traveled in the area.
Garrett said he did not remember anyone giving
approval for the project. What he did remember was his
statement of concern about the weight of the trucks on roads
in the area.
Bureau of Land Management officials, represented by
Rex Rowley, objected to the road improvement, specifically
to the road being widened, and had considered fining the
mining company for trespass violation.
However, Steele said the road is one of those the
county is claiming in the dispute with the federal
government as an RS4772 road.
"That's what we have the authority to do," said
Steele. "We have the authority to go beyond the disturbed
area. Congress gave us that opportunity and it has never
been taken away."
It was just such rights the county was trying to keep.
That is why the county had agreed to enter into the lawsuit
with other counties in the state against the federal
government. The federal government was trying to take away
the very right to improve roads that the county was laying
stake to.
"Juab County claims a right-of-way under Revised
Statutes 2477 over the road northward from the Weiss Highway
to within a couple hundred yards from the mine," said
Leavitt. "Given that right-of-way, the county has the right
to make reasonable and necessary improvements within the
boundaries of the right-of-way."
As far as the scope of the right-of-way, he said, Utah
state law, historically, and federal court cases, recently,
have declared that the scope of a county's right-of-way is
that which is reasonable and necessary to ensure safe travel
for the traditional uses to which the right-of-way is
put.
Courts have also said that those rights-of-way should
not be restricted to the actual beaten path, but should be
widened to meet the exigencies of increased travel and
should allow travelers to pass each other.
The same sort of road improvement had been in dispute
at Cherry Creek, he said, when the county wanted to widen
the road there.
"We have a verbal agreement, which we have honored as
a county road department, to go to the disturbed
right-of-way," said Garrett. "The BLM said the road was an
equipment road, a two-track road."
Nevertheless, said Garrett, he realized he was a
county employee and worked under the conditions set by the
county commission. Therefore, if they would direct him as a
body to do a certain thing, he would do it.
"Newco has the right, under mining laws, to access the
mine and carry material to and from the mine using heavy
equipment, trucks, etc.," said Leavitt.
Given that the road in question is the most direct
route from the Weiss highway to the mine, Leavitt said, the
county thought it wise to encourage Newco to use the road
rather than some other more circuitous and lengthy route
such as the road that encircles Coyote Knoll from the
south.
Leavitt said, in addition, given the amount, size and
weight of the vehicles that Newco would be using traveling
to and from the mine, failure to gravel the road would cause
environmental damage, including erosion, disturbance of the
surrounding soil and plants, and the likelihood of large
amounts of dust, sand and dirt being kicked up into the
air.
"In my interpretation of the court cases I have
reviewed, the county has the right to do what it has done in
regards to this road, but it certainly had the ability to
communicate better," said Leavitt.
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