Utah residents are up in arms over plans to close popular scenic hiking trails to make room for luxury mansions.
The Bearclaw Poppy and Zen trails in Washington County could be impacted by the plans as they fall inside a 6,800-acre area called Zone 6 that officials are preparing for construction.
Outdoor enthusiasts have launched an effort to stop the development, with opponents also citing the area’s tortoise population that could be endangered.
‘Nearly every mountain biker who has ever visited St. George has ridden on that trail,’ resident Supe Lillywhite told the Salt Lake Tribune.
‘What can’t coexist is a house or a driveway being built on top of a tortoise’s burrow… The tortoises will have to be moved or die off in the area.’
The Bearclaw Poppy and Zen trails in Washington County, Utah, could be closed by a controversial move to expand a highway and build luxury homes
Lillywhite is part of the campaign to save Zone 6’s ecosystem, which has seen an online petition garner thousands of signatures.
The reason the popular trails could be closed stems from a move by the Trump administration in January 2021 to expand the Northern Corridor Highway across the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
Zone 6, a parcel of land evenly split between the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Utah Trust Lands Administration, was then set aside to offset the impact of the highway construction.
Washington County officials and the federal government announced plans to build both affordable and luxury housing on the Mojave Desert plot, although the development of the highway has been put on hold.
The highway construction will only restart following an environmental study on the impact of the plans, and Utah will be forced to sell its trust lands in Zone 6 if it is not approved.
Aaron Langston, assistant managing director of the Trust Lands Administration’s Washington County office, said this week that ‘if the federal government undoes their agreement, we will simply undo our agreement.’
Officials say the developments would bring an economic boom to the area and make room for construction of a number of multi-million dollar homes. A Utah McMansion is pictured
While the highway construction remains in limbo, officials still moved to start construction on October 1 as the Trust Lands Administration issued a request to government agencies for development plans on 1,200 acres of Zone 6.
Langston said he hopes this will entice an economic boom to the area, and in January he said the state would then put the plot up for sale to private developers to build homes on the land.
Officials have indicated that they anticipate to also construct on over 1,500 acres in the northern part of the area in the future.
And although state and county lawmakers are keen to build on the area, residents and outdoor enthusiasts say losing the trails would be a disaster for the area.
Langston estimated that if the land is developed roughly 60 percent of all the trails in Zone 6 would be impacted.
The area is also known for its rock climbing, with more than 300 bouldering and 80 rock climbing routes also set to be affected.
The area is known for prime mountain biking and bouldering routes, however officials said up to 60 percent of trails and a number of rock-climbing routes will be affected
Holly Snow Canada, an executive director of environmental group Conserve Southwest Utah who is opposing the housing, stressed that Utah officials would have had other options available to them.
‘If the Northern Corridor Highway is denied, there are many paths to protecting the Greater Moe’s Valley Area in a way that’s permanent and more secure than the current voluntary ‘Zone 6′ deal,’ she told the Salt Lake Tribune.
‘Washington County has spent millions of dollars over the last few decades on a highway that would make traffic worse, increase wildfire risk, and harm beloved recreation areas, instead of using that time and those resources to protect the places that are important to the community.
‘Now is the time for our local leaders to step up and say ‘no’ to the highway through our backyard treasure, Red Cliffs, and ‘yes’ to permanent protections for the recreation jewel, the Greater Moe’s Valley Area.’
