This from todays Salt Lake Tribune:

Environmentalists: Court rules issue is settled, suit is moot
By Joe Baird
The Salt Lake Tribune



The decade-old lawsuit that spawned a landmark appeals court decision about how ownership disputes over Utah's rural backroads will henceforth be determined is over.
A federal judge in Salt Lake City on Wednesday dismissed the 1996 suit filed against the Bureau of Land Management by a coalition of environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Sierra Club.
The environmentalists had argued that the agency violated federal environmental laws when it initially failed to take action against Kane, Garfield and San Juan counties for doing unauthorized road construction in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The counties bladed what they claimed to be county roads under RS 2477, an old mining law that granted rights-of-way across federal land. The statute was repealed by Congress in 1976, but existing roads were grandfathered in, spawning numerous ownership disputes in Utah.
Judge Bruce Jenkins granted the counties' motion to dismiss, citing new standards handed down by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals last fall that essentially made state law, not BLM policy, the prevailing factor in assessing road ownership claims in Utah. Coupled with an agreement between the agency and the counties following that decision to shelve disputes over the roads in question, Jenkins said the lawsuit was rendered moot.
"Based upon prior [court] orders and the 10th Circuit ruling, there's really nothing remaining you could call a conflict or a controversy," he said. "It appears to me that the two parties [the BLM and the counties] are in a position to resolve matters.
"The plaintiffs are left bereft of controversy."
San Juan County attorney Sean Welch said Jenkins' ruling should be the final chapter in a dispute that has taken multiple twists and turns over the past 10 years.
A U.S. District Court ruling initially
determined that the BLM could assess road ownership claims, forcing the counties to submit proof of construction and other evidence to support their claims. But last September's 10th Circuit decision reversed that ruling.
"There's nothing left to fight over," Welch said after the 90-minute hearing. "The BLM made a decision not to fight that fight [over the roads], and SUWA cannot make the BLM fight. A third party cannot force a fight."
But Heidi McIntosh, SUWA's conservation director says the battle will go on. While the environmental groups are unsure if they will appeal Jenkins' decision, McIntosh predicted that the core issue - forcing the counties to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and Federal Land Policy Management Act - will reappear in other venues as formal road ownership claims are made by the counties.
Environmental groups and the counties, she suggested, could be headed for a period of "trench warfare," if individual claims become the subject of litigation.
"It's not over as long as the state and the counties fail to recognize what this is about," McIntosh said. "This isn't about roads. It's about who will control the future of our public lands, whether there will be any wilderness left to protect when the fallout clears."
jbaird@sltrib.com