This is in todays tribune also...
Happy Trails
Scott
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2629650
Article Last Updated: 03/29/2005 11:31:15 PM
Access to our land
Recent letters to the Public Forum regarding Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw's enforcement of Kane County rights of way demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues.
How would Tom Carter feel if the Bureau of Land Management closed the road leading to his house in Kanab? I suspect he would be outraged and immediately call the sheriff. If the barricades remained, he would no doubt prevail upon Gov. Huntsman to restore his lost access.
This is a failed analogy, many would say, because, although the BLM obviously doesn't own the streets of Kanab, it surely must own the roads on the public lands it manages. Yet herein lies the source of the misunderstanding.
In 1866, Congress granted these roads and their rights of way to the counties and states. In 1976 Congress ended the granting of new rights but guaranteed the validity of those already in existence. For the past 25 years, federal land management agencies have undertaken a politically inspired program of ignoring these property rights in order to remove the public from public lands. Sadly, some local governments have been reluctant to confront this tragic encroachment on the rights of the people of Utah.
We must commend Commissioner Habbeshaw for trying to set things right and for having the courage to stand up to the federal behemoth as it devours the last remnants of pubic land access.
Rainer Huck
President, Utah Shared Access Alliance
Salt Lake City