Like a broken record, some bad ideas keep coming back to haunt Utah’s wild places. At SUWA, we’ve seen our fair share of misguided proposals resurface over the years—from attempts to pave this or that road to mining or leasing proposals that rise again from the dead. But perhaps none have been as persistent over the last several decades as the Northern Corridor Highway—the ultimate “Greatest Hits of Bad Ideas” chart-topper. And unfortunately, folks, this old tune is playing again!

The Northern Corridor is a proposed four-lane highway through the heart of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) directly north of St. George, Utah. For decades, Washington County officials have pushed to connect the northeast and northwest sides of the city by slicing through protected habitat. And for just as long, conservationists and concerned community members have fought to preserve this spectacular landscape.

The Red Cliffs NCA is a 45,000-acre wonderland where the Mojave Desert, Colorado Plateau, and Great Basin landscapes converge. In creating the NCA in 2009, Congress increased protections for the area, specifically to safeguard threatened Mojave desert tortoises, irreplaceable cultural sites, world-class recreation, and breathtaking desert vistas. But the Northern Corridor Highway would cut through Red Cliffs NCA for 4.5 miles, damaging everything Congress set out to protect. Furthermore, the proposed highway would set a dangerous national precedent—that lands protected by Congress as part of the National Conservation Lands system can simply be paved over, despite these heightened protections, inadvertently jeopardizing over 37 million acres of designated areas nationwide.

Tales of a Tortoise and History of a Highway: The Battle So Far

We’re at an important moment in the long fight to protect the Red Cliffs—let’s take a look back at how we got here.

Washington County, Utah, is a land of stunning contrasts, with landscapes unlike any others included in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act. It’s this unique ecology that sparked a remarkable conservation effort two decades ago. In 2004, Utah Governor Olene Walker initiated discussions over the fate of this special place. What followed was a five-year fistfight. When the Utah politicians introduced bad legislation in 2006, we rallied 120 organizations, convinced newspapers across the country to editorialize, and generated over 100,000 emails and countless phone calls and letters demonstrating opposition to Congress. With this pressure, SUWA killed the 2006 bill, overcoming a backroom deal that had been cut between Utah and Nevada senators. This all opened the door for Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) to negotiate successful 2009 legislation with Utah Senator Bob Bennett that designated 130,000 acres of BLM wilderness, 125,000 acres of national park wilderness, 165 miles of Wild and Scenic river, the 63,478-acre Beaver Dam Wash NCA, and the 44,859-acre Red Cliffs NCA.

Congress established the NCAs with a clear mandate: to “conserve, protect and enhance” a remarkable wealth of resources for future generations. For Red Cliffs, this includes everything from the area’s stunning scenery and recreational opportunities to its rich cultural history and vital wildlife habitats, particularly for the Mojave desert tortoise, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The Red Cliffs NCA encompasses the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, established in 1995 as part of a Habitat Conservation Plan developed between local, state, and federal land management agencies. This reserve plays a crucial role in protecting the threatened tortoise. Since the reserve’s creation, the Department of the Interior has invested over $21 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire more than 857 acres specifically for tortoise habitat protection. Protecting these lands from development is particularly important as leading researchers warn that the Mojave desert tortoise is on a path to extinction. In particular, its habitat in southwestern Utah faces pressure from rapid urban growth.

While the 2009 Act was a major conservation victory, it also planted the seeds of persistent disagreement and unhappiness on the part of highway proponents. During the bill’s development, Washington County officials discussed the possibility of a “northern transportation route” through the NCA. However, the final legislation does not require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to approve such a highway. Instead, it simply directs the BLM to consider a northern route as one option in its land use planning process, which the agency did. In 2016, after an intensive 8-year planning process, the BLM approved a resource management plan that considered, but rejected, the idea of allowing a highway right-of-way through the NCA. In its environmental analysis, the agency concluded that such a road would violate its congressional mandate to protect the area’s resources, particularly endangered species like the tortoise.

For over a decade, the BLM repeatedly rejected the Northern Corridor proposal as incompatible with Red Cliffs’ protected status. But in a last-minute move, the Trump administration approved the highway right-of-way in January 2021—ignoring years of scientific analysis and public opposition and the agency’s own conclusions that a highway was incompatible with a congressionally-protected conservation area. In its approval, the BLM revealed a laundry list of potential impacts, including:

• Disruption of 275 acres of designated critical habitat for the Mojave desert tortoise.
• Increased spread of invasive species and wildfire risk.
• Dramatic alterations in recreational and scenic experiences in the NCA.
• Damage to cultural sites eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Even in its approval, the BLM determined that the highway would negatively impact nearly every natural and ecological resource that Red Cliffs NCA was established to protect.

SUWA and our allies, including local Washington County residents and national and regional conservation groups such as Conserve Southwest Utah—our stalwart, consistent partner in protecting Red Cliffs for many years—challenged this decision in court. Represented by Advocates for the West, we argued that the BLM and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) violated at least five federal statutes as they moved to approve a highway right-of-way through the NCA (the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act).

At the same time, Red Cliffs advocates took other actions to encourage the new Biden administration to rescind approval of the highway: sending letters, advocating in Congress, and submitting a petition with over 35,000 signatures opposing the highway corridor to officials at the Department of the Interior.

In late 2023, in response to our lawsuit, the BLM identified legal errors and other concerns with its 2021 analysis and asked the federal court to send approval of the right-of-way back to the agencies for reconsideration. In October 2023, all parties signed a settlement agreement requiring the BLM and the USFWS to complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) by fall 2024. The settlement requires the BLM to reconsider the highway’s impacts, analyze important issues they overlooked in the initial EIS and, potentially, rescind its approval. The agency is now preparing the SEIS and taking a fresh look at alternatives and environmental consequences. This new analysis could determine whether this treasured landscape remains protected or gets sliced in two by a four-lane highway.

So far, the new SEIS process has resulted in excellent advocacy and engagement from SUWA members and supporters all over the country who care deeply about desert habitat, cultural resources, and this world-class area. During the initial “scoping” stage, the BLM received over 5,500 comments opposed to the highway and in support of protecting Red Cliffs, thanks again in huge part to the advocacy and engagement of Conserve Southwest Utah. As of press time, the comment period on the “draft” SEIS has recently wrapped up and we’ve seen similar levels of support and engagement—thank you!

Unfortunately, at the same time, highway advocates have continued with their own “greatest hits” of pro-Northern Corridor arguments with these erroneous themes: “the highway was promised by Congress in the 2009 bill” (false) and “without the highway, other protected tortoise habitat will be developed” (false)—old arguments that didn’t work the first time around. They even hosted a one-sided field hearing of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee in early 2024.

Especially frustrating is the fact that many viable alternatives exist to meet St. George’s transportation needs without destroying Red Cliffs NCA. But as long as the option bisecting Red Cliffs is front of mind for local government officials, no other alternatives are being seriously considered.

The Next Chapter: A Better Way Forward

For decades, SUWA and our conservation partners have stood up for Red Cliffs, beating back repeated attempts to bulldoze through this desert paradise. We’ve been heavily engaged in the SEIS process (thank you to everyone who has showed up at public meetings, signed advocacy actions, and much more!) and will hopefully be able to share good news about the outcome of the BLM’s current reconsideration later this year.

Together, we can ensure Red Cliffs remains a sanctuary for desert tortoises, a haven for cultural and ancestral landscape connections, a scenic wonderland, and a gem of protected public lands for generations to come. The “Greatest Hits of Bad Ideas” album has been playing long enough ­—it’s time to change the tune and choose conservation over concrete.

—Kya Marienfeld

The above first appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of our Redrock Wilderness newsletter. Become a member to receive our print newsletter in your mailbox 3 times a year.