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A revised Resource Management Plan for southeast Utah portends significant recreation impacts on the "world's playground"

The hike in from this end of the canyon requires some desert-rat ingenuity: ledge-leaping, crack-finding, and a belly-to-rock shimmy that brings me eye-to-eye with lizards and pack-rat deposits. The canyon bottom is solid ground well earned. On our descent, I find a small, rosy arrowhead, fully intact and delicately held by a finger of living soil. It foreshadows our destination.

Water runs through the sandy wash, a reminder not only of the previous night's storm, but also the people of a previous age who subsisted on such fragile flows. We soon find evidence of the canyon's prior inhabitants on its walls, the images standing sentinel in the vast silence. We sit and ponder the meaning of a millennia-old red being who seems to catch comets. Even through the veil of our culture-bound ignorance, we find communion with a people long gone.

An overgrown two-track lies below us. It, too, is a remnant of the past, but it also foreshadows the canyon's future. And the red Comet Catcher continues to stand sentinel, watching and waiting.

The Comet Catcher's canyon, and a 1.8 million-acre tract of desert surrounding it, is at a crossroads. The Bureau of Land Management's Moab Field Office is revising its Resource Management Plan, or RMP, which dictates how the area's lands will be managed for the next 15-20 years. The document is extensive in scope - recreation management, backcountry travel, resource extraction, grazing, wildlife management, and the preservation of wilderness characteristics are among the many topics covered - and it's taken the BLM five years to reach this point in planning. The previous plan, drafted in 1985, is now out-of-touch with current land use trends, specifically the boom in motorized recreation.

"We've never had less public land in our nation's history, and we've never had more people wanting to use it for their own reasons," says Moab's acting Field Office Manager, Shelley Smith. "There's more and more demand on these public lands. What the plan tries to do is plan away some of the inherent conflicts between the uses."

The draft RMP addresses these conflicts through four distinct alternatives, running the gamut from a focus on resource protection to enhancing opportunities for extractive and motorized use. A 90-day public comment was available through November 30, allowing interested parties to weigh in on the alternatives in this acronym-laden, 1,460-page document. With the help of this public input, some derivative of Alternative C - BLM's preferred and "balanced" alternative - will likely be implemented by next summer.

Considering Moab's reputation as the world's playground, the plan's prescriptions for recreation management will have the greatest impact on the area's future. And it's the planning for motorized recreation (a recent Salt Lake Tribune article referred to Moab as "a fun-hog heaven for off-highway vehicle recreation.") that has area residents and visitors poring over pages of a plan most people would rather ignore and leave to the bureaucrats who drafted it. However, directives for a generation's worth of land use - or abuse, depending on your views - are best not ignored.

In the RMP's preferred alternative, 2,642 miles of motorized routes blanket the resource area. The map, with routes drawn in red, has been compared to a bloodshot eye. Decisions on the utility of each route were made mostly in the office, not the field, and the actual presence of these routes was largely determined via aerial photos. During this process, BLM staff approached the resource area quadrant-by-quadrant, identifying a purpose and need for each inventoried route while discussing potential resource conflicts, including routes through riparian zones and archaeological sites. There was little time for ground-truthing.

"We actually have a lot of on-the-ground knowledge in this office," says BLM Recreation Planner Katie Stevens, defending the largely office-bound travel planning process. She then describes how the office arrived at their travel plan maps, weighing the purpose of routes against resource conflicts. Routes with major impacts on resources were largely eliminated from the BLM's conservation plan, Alternative B. Even this conservation alternative designates over 2,100 miles of routes.

"When there was no resource conflict and the purpose and need (for the route) was low, it was kind of like, ?Why close it?'" says Stevens, explaining how BLM developed its densely packed route maps. "The impact occurred when the road was made. Continued travel on the road - admittedly, if people stay on the road - does not add to the impact."

And that is the crux of the problem: Ideally, such route designations will not have greater impact on the land. But, for all the responsible four-wheelers out there, it only takes one maverick, tearing off the trail, to do irreparable harm. So the more routes there are, and the more popular they get, and the deeper into the backcountry they go, the more we are putting the right to recreate ahead of the welfare of the land. The answer to "Why close it?" is that, otherwise, we are playing Russian roulette with finite resources.

For an agency as overworked and underfunded as the BLM - and with insufficient means to patrol route closures - the strategy Stevens describes makes sense. For the future of this desert soil, though, it seems inadequate. The BLM is making implementation decisions without strong sense of the present truth of this ground, let alone the actions of future recreationists. There is so much we don't know about our desert home - so many archaeological, cultural and rock-bound mysteries - how can we possibly plan for the hidden and the unexpected?

As Jerry Spangler knows, the only way to plan is to know. And that requires getting your hands dirty.

Spangler, the executive director of Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance (CPAA), is particularly concerned with BLM's approach to route designation. As he points out, cultural sites are a finite resource, and not knowing what's out there may mean never knowing.

"These management decisions are being based on faulty and insufficient data," says Spangler. "[The BLM] doesn't know what kind of resources they have along those routes, whether those routes go through archaeological sites, or whether people are leaving the route on ATVs and damaging the sites with wheeled vehicles. The travel plan basically says, ?We don't need to find out what any of those impacts are.' That's very disturbing."

CPAA recently conducted studies in Tenmile Canyon, a drainage containing a perennial stream, numerous archaeological sites, and a motorized route up the canyon bottom. In focusing on a half-mile section of canyon where the BLM had documented just three cultural sites, Spangler and his colleagues identified 21 distinct sites. None of these newly found cultural remnants was considered in the travel plan.

The simple fact of motorized access won't necessarily lead to the destruction of these archaeological sites, but all too often, access and damage are interrelated. Research conducted by Spangler has shown that the most highly impacted sites are those visible from an existing off-road vehicle route. Another study confirmed that sites near such routes had a higher incidence of vandalism. Spangler describes a similar scenario in Tenmile, where vehicles are leaving the main route in large numbers and driving through cultural sites on the canyon benches. Significant looting has occurred in some of the alcoves.

"I don't know that the ATV people did the looting," says Spangler, "but the shelters are looted and there are ATV tracks leading to them." He goes on to describe the looting equipment found there: lights hanging from alcove ceilings, digging implements, screens, and other gear not easily brought in on foot. The damage is irreplaceable. Ancient cultural remnants are a finite resource.

As Spangler describes this, my mind drifts to the Comet Catcher, to the quiet alcove adjacent to it. And I think of the nearly reclaimed two-track below this haunting figure. Motorized access to the canyon is impossible right now; the route into it is washed out. But in the travel plan's preferred alternative, the route is designated. Motorized access will be pioneered anew. And what does this mean for the Comet Catcher's environs? I know a small bit of the present truth of this ground - a truth that has stood watch for millennia - and I fear what the coming of modern recreational machinery implies.

Spangler continues, confirming my fears: "The BLM in Moab has shown no willingness in the past to do aggressive enforcement of the rules, and if this is how they approach one established route in the resource area, how are they going to enforce thousands of miles of designated routes? They're not going to do it. They don't have the resources."

Michael Swenson has a different perspective. He is the Executive Director of Utah Shared Access Alliance, or USA-All, a group committed to defending opportunities for motorized access to Utah's public lands. He acknowledges that increased access - motorized or otherwise - equates to increased resource impacts, but it's a trade-off.

"The question is what the cost-benefit analysis of such access is. I would argue that motorized recreation provides a huge benefit to the public and even to federal agencies with regards to the management of resources." Swenson goes on to point out that motorized access leads to the discovery of many important resources, it allowed for the founding and development of Moab, and it's what causes people to fall in love with the landscape.

"You cannot possibly assure that there won't be negative impact and a loss of some kind, but the cumulative result of allowing access to off-road routes . . . is a net gain and, therefore, a positive thing for society."

Granted, increased motorized access might bring to light some of this land's mysteries, but is it worth learning the mysteries only to lose them in the process?

The Moab Field Office is not alone in these sweeping planning efforts. Field offices in Vernal, Price, Richfield, Monticello and Kanab are also in varying stages of their RMP efforts, with 11 million acres of public land at stake in the state of Utah. According to a recent piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, there could be as much as 10,000 miles of motorized routes designated in these plans, akin to "driving across America three times on an ATV."

There is a push to finalize these plans within the next year. After five years of planning for most of these documents, the BLM is allowing 90-day public comment periods (rejecting requests for extensions), and many of these comment periods are overlapping. Thus, the public has a scant few months to review thousands of pages of proposed planning guidelines that will greatly impact much of the state's public lands.

Many groups cried foul on such an abbreviated comment period, including SUWA, Grand County Backcountry Council, Outward Bound, NOLS, the Outdoor Industry Association, Utah Rivers Council, and Rep. Jim Matheson, among others, but to no avail. BLM's Stevens points out that a 45-day comment period is all that's required by law. And, according to Russ von Koch, BLM's recreation branch chief, the timing is important due to funding issues.

"There's a limited window in terms of the financing for these plans," he says. "They need to be finished while we still have the ability to go through and complete them."

However, others see political motives behind the funding issues. Scott Braden, field advocate and RMP specialist for Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is one such person. He believes the process is highly political.

"[The RMP] is designed to be a means of weighing science-informed options, but it's not. It's a political document. The final product is tainted by local political desires, state political desires, and national political directives. And they're trying to shove these things through before the Bush administration is out."

While I don't like the politics of land management, I also don't envy the Moab Field Office's position in all of this. It's feeling pressure from Washington, D.C., and the state office to ensure certain outcomes. Meanwhile, the off-roaders rail against the agency, the wilderness groups constantly decry its management style, and all interests in between take some kind of issue with the RMP. The BLM is in a no-win situation here. Its multiple-use mandate assures that there will always be conflict on BLM lands ("We're trying to be all things to all people," laments Stevens). However, even if the situation is a no-win for the agency and user groups, is there a tenable solution for the land itself? And, if so, how do we arrive there from here, a place of conflicting personal interests?

SUWA's Braden suggests putting resources first. He says, "I think the priorities of the BLM in regards to the travel plan are out of balance. If there's a conflict with a resource - riparian areas, cultural resources, or where there's wilderness character identified - don't designate routes in it. Defer toward resource protection, not satisfying the whims of the motorized community."

Not surprisingly, USA-All's Swenson speaks from the other end of the spectrum.

"Many of these RMPs seem to pander to environmental extremists," he says. "It is our opinion that we as a society must place the human element first. If we do this, we will see the wisdom in protecting and preserving our environment because it benefits mankind."

Whether recreation or resources win out, everyone will be affected by the plan's implementation, including business owners, energy companies, guides, photographers, and all the myriad recreationists that have fallen in love with this redrock expanse. Exactly how people will be affected, though, is anyone's guess. And everyone has lots of guesses.

Ber Knight is an 83-year-old four-wheeling fanatic. He wears the desert's weather on his face and hands. He has an unruly shock of white hair that seems perpetually ruffled by a Jeep-created breeze. Much of his retirement is devoted to time in his Jeep and working with the Moab-based Red Rock 4-Wheelers to promote responsible motorized recreation in the area.

When Knight laughs and smiles, I can't help but do the same. And when he speaks, I am attentive; he holds a perspective on public lands issues that one of lesser years might not have reached. When he mentions the roads he's driven, it's as if he's speaking of beloved children whom he likes to check up on and brag about to others.

Knight is largely responsible for the baseline data the BLM used to make its route designations. Since 1992, he's driven almost every road in the resource area, documenting their conditions, GPS-ing their locations, and mapping them. He provided this data to the county who vetted it and then furnished it to the BLM during the planning process.

"This has been a job, in a sense," says Knight, "but it's also been a labor of love. I enjoy being out there. And I feel personal pleasure because [Grand County] took my maps as a basis to help them find these roads. That's a lot of work I did, and something's come of it. That's pretty neat."

Knight seems to be one of the few people in the area happy with the RMP and associated travel plan. When I ask him if he has any complaints, he's hard-pressed for an answer. He finally concedes that there's a quarter-mile road segment at Gemini Bridges he'd like to see open - the BLM proposes turning it into a hiking trail - and there's a route he'll miss in Mill Canyon that's gone to the mountain bikers. That's about it.

"If I were to be perfectly selfish, I'd say, ?I want all that!' But realistically, multiple-use doesn't mean I can drive anywhere I want. If I can put my wheels wherever I want, that's single-use, isn't it?" Knight pauses to let that point sink in. He continues, "A lot of the roads I drove, I'm sorry I put my tracks out there, in a way, because it doesn't belong there. A lot of the roads that are in the inventory that are not included in the travel plan are closing themselves because their usefulness has passed."

I appreciate Knight's sense of restraint, but I am also reminded that, after sacrificing some routes, he and his ilk are still sitting pretty with more than 2,600 miles of motorized exploration at their disposal. When I point out that 84 percent of Moab Field Office-managed lands below I-70 are within a half-mile of a road, his response is, "Good! Look at all the places we can go!" He follows this up with a hearty laugh and says, "Aren't we all a bunch of selfish people? I know I am."

All joking aside, this is an important point: Most disagreements on the RMP and travel plan boil down to how our self-interests conflict with the interests of others. We're all selfish by nature. I, personally, would like to see fewer routes designated so I can enjoy numerous hiking experiences without the roar and whine of motors nearby. Furthermore, I want to be assured that the places that are special to me - the Comet Catcher among them - won't be ravaged or vandalized by undisciplined motorists. I also understand Knight's side: He wants room for solitude and the opportunity to visit places special to him. We're not all that different.

Simply stated, though, as much as I like Ber Knight and respect his views, as much as I appreciate his passion for the land, I can't agree with him on the issues of roads, resource protection and balance. Knight and others like him enjoy a pursuit that has greater impact upon the land than most. Greater impact, I believe, must be accompanied by greater restraint. And a network of 2,642 miles of routes, in my mind, does not show much restraint.

It seems the human desire for recreation is trumping non-human needs. We don't require extensive motorized access for survival, but the desert has certain needs - stable soils, clear streams, unfragmented habitat - that are quickly eroding away. Is the idea of intrinsic value too abstract an issue to consider in resource management?

As SUWA's Braden laments, "It's a non-renewable resource here. They're not making places like this anymore."

In light of this truth, we can't afford to be shortsighted with this plan. It means making some sacrifices now to ensure that this vast stretch of redrock and rivers continues to thrive, supporting and inspiring future generations. It doesn't serve the Moab area, economically or otherwise, to overrun and subdue its backcountry. Two decades down the line, people will not be interested in visiting a spent landscape.

And the issue goes much deeper. It's also about accepting our role as part of this desert soil rather than mere managers of it. It's not just our own small agendas at stake. We live in a rich tapestry of interconnected life, and sacrificing any of it means shooting holes in the whole. Once we subtract something from our desert home - whether it be millennia-old cultural remnants, an endangered species, or the once stable soils now blowing away - it is irretrievable. In that sense, the decisions made today in Moab's Resource Management Plan have implications that stretch well beyond the two-decade lifespan of the document. We are talking about forever.

And forever is a very long time.

Jen Jackson writes from Moab, Utah, where she sometimes ponders the concept of landscape as roadkill.