OPINION/COMMENTARY

UTAH TRAIL USERS URGE STRIKING OF ILLEGAL ROAD CLOSURE

The closure of a recreational road by the National Park Service (NPS) violates the will of Congress that the road be kept open to the public; therefore, that closure must be stricken, several recreational groups argued in a brief filed today in Utah federal district court. The groups urged the court to invalidate the NPS’s decision to close the Salt Creek Road in Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. The groups’ brief in support of their counterclaim is only the latest legal action after years of litigation involving the Salt Creek Road, which accesses Angel Arch. “Ever since the National Park Service suffered a stinging rebuke at the hands of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2000 for illegally closing the road and for reversing its position on appeal, the Park Service and its lawyers have stonewalled so they need not comply with that ruling,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the recreational groups seeking to keep the Road open. “At long last they ran out of time and were forced to prepare a record and issue a ruling. Sad to say, instead of conducting an impartial review of the facts, they jerry-rigged a record in an attempt to support the decision that had been reached in the Clinton Administration, that is, to close the road and ban the public.”....