COMMENTS OF JOHN W. HISCOCK, PUBLIC EMPLOYEES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE COALITION TO PROTECT AMERICA’S NATIONAL PARKS REGARDING–BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, ST. GEORGE FIELD OFFICE, UTAH – GUNLOCK STATE PARK WEST ACCESS ROAD ROW –DOI-BLM-UT-C030-2025-0020-EA
These comments are submitted on DOI-BLM-UT-C030-2025-0020-EA, Gunlock State Park West Access Road ROW. The comments are related to the proper assessment of the noted project’s effects and impacts to the Old Spanish National Historic Trail (OSNHT), a congressionally, statutorily established unit of the National Trails System and the National Landscape System.
The noted environmental assessment (EA) is deficient in its assessment of potential effects of the project on the OSNHT. Much of the basis for these deficiencies is rooted in the Department of the Interior’s (DOI), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Park Service (NPS) failure to properly administer the OSNHT in accordance with the National Trails System Act (NTSA), and the failure of the BLM to properly plan for, manage, and ensure the protection of the OSNHT under its agency policies, and in this case, specifically under the St. George Field Office Resource Management Plan (RMP).
In the following comments the problems recognized in the EA will be detailed, resulting in a conclusion that the EA is comprehensively deficient and it, and or the project should be withdrawn. However, should the EA and its background supporting required documents and information be developed or revised in response to the noted deficiencies, a suggestion for a possible avenue to project authorization is also offered.
Detailed Comments
The Secretary of the Interior, BLM, and the BLM and NPS Co-Administrators of the OSNHT have a statutory responsibility to preclude uses along NHTs that would “substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of” such Trails. As detailed in following sections of these comments, for a variety of reasons, the EA preferred alternative fails to conclude that no substantial interference will take place by authorization of this project, and, therefore, is legally deficient.
The NTSA states that all “selected land and water based components of a historic trail which are on federally owned lands and which meet the national historic trail criteria established in this Act are included as Federal protection components of a national historic trail.” (16 U.S.C. §1242(a)(3)). Congress found that the 2700 miles of routes presented in the NPS “Old Spanish Trail – National Historic Trail Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment” of July, 2021, met “national historic trail criteria” established in the NTSA and, therefore statutorily added those routes to the National Trails System as the OSNHT. Therefore, all portions of the OSNHT crossing federally owned lands, including the lands in question under the subject action, are “Federal protection components” of the Trail.
The NTSA spells out land use allowances and disallowances along NHTs as follows:
“Within the exterior boundaries of areas under their administration that are included in the right-of-way selected for a national recreation, national scenic, or national historic trail, the heads of Federal agencies may use lands for trail purposes . . .” (16 U.S.C. §1246(d)).
– “National scenic or national historic trails may contain campsites, shelters, and related- public-use facilities,” “retracement” routes, trail “markers,” and “interpretation sites” within the Trail right-of-way (16 U.S.C. §1246(d)). “Other uses along the trail, which will not substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of the trail, may be permitted by the Secretary charged with the administration of the trail” (Id. emphasis added). Therefore, other uses along the Trail which would substantially interfere with the Trail’s nature and purposes are disallowed (Id.).
The disallowance of “activities incompatible with the purposes for which such trails were established” (Id.);
The limitation of the use of motor vehicles to those “which will not substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of the trail and which at the time of designation, . .
. [were] allowed by administrative regulations” (Id.)
The “nature and purposes” of the OSNHT are:
“to provide for the ever-increasing outdoor recreation needs of an expanding population and in order to promote the preservation of, public access to, travel within, and enjoyment and appreciation of the open-air, outdoor areas and historic resources of the Nation” (16 U.S.C. §1241(a));
to include “the identification and protection of the historic route and its historic remnants and artifacts for public use and enjoyment” (16 U.S.C. §1242(a)(3));
the purpose of affording the public “an opportunity to vicariously share the experience of the original users of a historic route.” (Id. at §1251(2); and,
the conservation and protection of the “landscape” of the Trail (Id. & 16 U.S.C. §7202(a)).
In summation, the conservation of the nature and purposes of the Trail entails protection of its cultural and natural resources and natural environment (including natural soundscapes and night skies), the protection of, or restoration of its landscape reminiscent of the period of significance of 1829 – 1848, and the protection of public opportunities for experiential recreation and education.
No statutorily mandated comprehensive management plan exists for the OSNHT.
The NTSA requires that a comprehensive plan for the management (CMP) of each national scenic, or national historic trail be completed within two years of congressional, statutory authorization. Each such CMP provides governmental guidance for the proper management of each national historic trail (NHT). The OSNHT was established by law in 2002. No CMP for the OSNHT has been issued to date – a 23 year deficiency. The CMP required of the DOI and its delegated OSNHT administrators – the BLM and NPS would if in existence provide management guidance to all federal agencies, their respective field units, and other various cooperators, for the OSNHT. Without it federal land management units lack comprehensive guidance for the management and protection of NHTs dictated in the NTSA.
Although the BLM and NPS co-administrators of the OSNHT did develop and issue a Comprehensive Administrative Strategy (CAS) in 2017 that document fails to meet NTSA and NEPA requirements. This unreviewed and NTSA non-compliant document cannot fulfill or ensure BLM’s compliance with the requirements of management and protection of the OSNHT.
No statutorily mandated right-of-way exists for the OSNHT.
The NTSA requires that the relevant Secretary, in this case the Secretary of the DOI, establish a right-of-way for each NT. As explained in BLM policy (Manual 6250 & 6280) such right-of-way establishes a width for each NT for administrative, management, and protective purposes related to the requirements, purposes, and limitations of the NTSA. Without the designation of such a NTSA right-of-way, and refined land management NT corridor (discussed below), the proper Area of Potential Effect related to the EA can not be set and impacts not properly assessed.
The BLM has failed to follow proper project right-of-way statutory requirements for this road project crossing a NTSA right-of-way.
The issuance of federal project right-of-ways (distinguishable from the aforementioned NTSA right-of-way), such as that currently contemplated in the Gunlock Road EA, is limited by the NTSA. The NTSA clearly prescribes the issuance of right-of-ways on NHTs as follows: “[t]he Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture as the case may be, may grant easements and rights-of-way upon, over, under, across, or along any component of the national trails system in accordance with the laws applicable to the national park system and the national forest system, respectively.” 16 U.S.C. 1248(a). Consequently, in this particular case, where the right-of-way application is on Department of the Interior lands, and the OSNHT is specified as administered by the Secretary of the Interior, the subject right-of-way must be assessed and issued or denied under laws “applicable to the national park system” including all applicable NPS regulations such as 36 CFR, Chapter 1, Part 14, and with the direct involvement of the NPS.
Any question of the applicability of 16 U.S.C. 1248(a) on the basis of whether the project is “along” the OSNHT is unfortunately unresolved due to the Secretary of the Interior’s failure to establish a OSNHT NTSA right-of-way in accordance with 16 U.S.C. §1246(a)(2), and furthermore, the BLM’s failure to establish a OSNHT Trail Corridor, in accordance with BLM Manual 6280, in the St. George Field Area RMP and its amendments. As will be presented, the current project should clearly be considered along the OSNHT, and within the OSNHT overdue, but prospective, NTSA right-of-way for all aspects of NEPA analysis. Furthermore, the proposed project literally crosses the congressionally established OSNHT line of the Old Spanish Trail Recognition Act of 2002 (Pub. Law 107-325, 116 Stat. 2790) codified in the United States Code at 16 U.S.C. 1244 (23) which defines the geographic establishment of the OSNHT as follows:
The Old Spanish National Historic Trail, an approximately 2,700 mile long trail extending from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, that served as a major trade route between 1829 and 1848, as generally depicted on the maps numbered 1 through 9, as contained in the report entitled ‘Old Spanish Trail National Historic Trail Feasibility Study,’ dated July 2001, including the Armijo Route, Northern Route, North Branch, and Mojave Road.
As a point of further clarification, the proposed project lies along and across the “Northern Route” of the OSNHT.
BLM has failed to follow its own policies concerning NHT management such as RMP amendment, comprehensive Trail resource, values, and opportunities inventories, and Trail corridor designation, and incorporate these actions and information into its EA, resulting in its complete inadequacy in regard to the OSNHT.
BLM policies on NT management contained in Manual 6280 – Management of National Scenic and Historic Trails (2012) direct the agency’s Trail Administrator, State Offices, and Field Offices to incorporate numerous NT management actions into their RMPs as soon as possible after congressional establishment of a NT, to enable their proper management and protection. Again, the OSNHT was congressionally established in 2002, however the 1999 St. George Field Office RMP still has not been amended to include policy actions effectuating the NTSA in regard to the OSNHT, and does not even mention the existence of the NHT. Manual 6280 also directs BLM field units to conduct comprehensive inventories of NT resources, values, and opportunities on their respective lands, and identify “trail corridors” encompassing those resources, values and opportunities for management and protection purposes. See Manual 6280 at Chap. 3 (re: inventories) and Chap. 4 (re: land use planning for “trail management corridors).
To date, there is no indication that BLM has conducted the referenced, comprehensive OSNHT inventories in the St. George Field Office area, or established a “trail management corridor” in that area and its RMP.
We note that BLM has established the Santa Clara/Gunlock ACEC, overlying a portion of the probable OSNHT. Although we fully support the establishment of this ACEC, and its proper protective management, we find it incongruous that BLM has taken the time and resources to establish this discretionary, administrative designation, prior to fulfilling its statutory planning obligations pursuant to the NTSA, and its own extensive policies regarding such planning and management.
Without any explanation the current BLM EA mentions a “legislatively depicted trail corridor for the Northern Route of the OSNHT” (p.56) and arbitrarily and capriciously seems to identify a 250 foot “buffer” (a term otherwise not used in the NTSA or BLM Manual 6280) as possibly constituting such a 6280 trail corridor. (See EA, Figure 3-12, p. 57). Also, without explanation, the EA talks about a “OSNHT designated corridor” and “OSNHT corridor” on p. 58. None of these references are backed with information regarding a BLM comprehensive inventory of OSNHT resources, values, and public opportunities, that would have to have been completed prior to its designation of a Trail corridor, or information on the explicit establishment of a 6280 corridor.
Some headway regarding BLM NT inventories and potential corridor setting has recently been established at the national level. Current BLM national policy and practice contained in its BLM Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and Proposed Resource Management Plan Amendments for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development requirements (henceforth, W. States Solar PEIS/RMPA), for all western states, and coincidentally all states crossed by the OSNHT, calls for landscape inventories related to NTs, prior to any solar development ROWs being issued along NTs. That programmatic plan states and includes a section titled “H.4 National Scenic and Historic Trail – Draft Inventory Analysis Units.” Id. at Appendix H, pp. H-1, H-6. The text of section H.4 states:
The map shown in Figure H.4-1 illustrates the locations of the National Scenic and Historic Trail -Draft Inventory Analysis Units (IAUs). A higher resolution and interactive map illustrating the National Scenic and Historic Trail Inventory Analysis Units is available using the following link: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/51e1b71274f248aaa8f831b229dcfc38 .
Based on design feature SDLW-3, if a proposed solar project includes areas within these Draft IAUs, the project developer shall evaluate, in coordination with the BLM, whether the proposed development area has been adequately inventoried (per BLM Technical References 6280-1 Volumes 1 & 2) to inform about any adverse impacts on the resources, qualities, values, associated settings, and the nature and primary use or uses of the potentially affected trail. If adverse impacts are determined to be likely, avoidance or other mitigation measures must be identified in coordination with the BLM authorizing officer. Updates or refinements to the IAUs through the inventory process would supersede the Draft versions. (see Appendix B, Section B.2.16 for the entire design feature text).
Id. at Appendix H, p. H-1 & H-6. The referenced, relevant webpage on “Inventory Analysis Units” (IAUs) describes such units, lacking an RMP designated Trail Corridor, to be 30 miles in width, or 15 miles either side of the congressionally designated centerline of an NHT. It is indicative of current BLM policy to inventory and assess an area 15 miles on either side of the centerline of a NT to determine the validity of a management and protective corridor for said Trails. It makes perfect sense that this BLM policy (in fact amending the St. George Field Office RMP as of December, 2024 (see Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments for the Northern Corridor Right-of-way, Red Cliffs National Conservation Area Resource Management Plan, and St. George Field Office Resource Management Plan U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management January 2021, signed by DOI Secretary David L. Bernhardt) would apply not only to solar energy development, but to any ground disturbing activity the BLM might permit or authorize, including a right-of-way authorization for a road, as this project proposes.
The EA erroneously states that pursuant to Manual 6280 the BLM must assess “potential effects on the landscape elements of potentially affected NHTs” (see p. 58). Yes, the potential effects on landscape elements must be assessed, but so must the potential effects on cultural and natural resources related to the Trail, and effects on recreational and educational values and opportunities. The complete array of potential effects analysis related to NTs is spelled out at Manual 6280, Chap.1, §1.6, A.3. (p.1-17 et. seq.) and Chap. 5, §5.3 (p. 5-2, et. seq.), v, c, (2) and requires much more than BLM has undertaken in its current EA.
The supposed Trail inventory undertaken by the BLM and State of Utah contractor, Horrocks, (see EA, Appendix D, “Old Spanish Trail, National Trails Act Analysis for the Gunlock State Park Improvements” and “DFCM DNR Sand Hollow, Quail Creek & Gunlock Campground Improvements Visual Resources Memo”) is similarly insufficient, concentrating on limited aspects of the requirements of Manual 6280. As just one example of the insufficiency of the reports, the contractor talks of meeting BLM VRM Class III objectives for the Trail corridor in contrast to BLM’s Manual 6280 statement that federal protection components of NHTs should be classified as Class I or II. BLM Manual 6280 states “[t]o retain or improve the integrity of the associated settings and scenic values for which the National Trail was designated, the BLM should consider establishing VRM classes at the most protective level practicable to meet National Trail scenery management objectives”, and strongly encourages a “VRM Class I or II designation for . . . National Historic Trail Federal Protection Components” (BLM Manual 6280 at p.4-8). As mentioned, there are many other shortcomings in the EA and BLM and contractor work, with policy-based requirements for inventories spelled out at Manual 6280, Chap. 3. In innumerable ways the BLM OSNHT pseudo inventories are woefully insufficient and out of line with its own policies.
All these examples of the failure to meet explicit BLM Policy Manual 6280 requirements are reason for the retraction or thorough revision of the EA.
Confusing Statements Regarding Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) Use in the Project Area and Within the Probable Legitimate OSNHT Corridor
In numerous portions of the EA, the BLM refers to damage being caused by unregulated and rampant OHV use, not locationally specified, but clearly within any imaginable OSNHT corridor. And, suggests that such use will be alleviated by allowance of the project road and related parking and other facilities. No concern is shown over whether such OHV use is even legal. It should be made absolutely clear that motorized vehicle use along the national historic trails is strictly limited by statute in the NTSA to such use “which will not substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of the trail and which at the time of designation, . . . [was] allowed by administrative regulations” (16 U.S.C. §1246(c) emphasis added). There is a high likelihood that the OHV problems mentioned in the EA are related to illegal OHV use. Any existing OHV problem and degradation of land values and purposes, including degradation of the NHT is not a problem of not having an access road, but a problem of BLM non-management and must be corrected.
In conclusion, the subject EA must be retracted for its complete failure to properly assess impacts to the OSNHT and its management and protection under the NTSA and existing BLM policy. Its reissuance is dependent first of all on DOI completion of a CMP for the OSNHT and designation of an OSNHT NTSA right-of-way, both required by law, but never done. Furthermore, BLM must comply with its Manual 6250 and 6280 requirements, comprehensively inventory all OSNHT resources, values, and opportunities, designate a NT corridor in the St. George Field Area and amend its RMP – all with adequate public participation, before reconsidering this project.
Ultimately, a negotiated road access right-of-way such as proposed may be possible, if its effects do not unreasonable derogate the resources, values, and opportunities of the OSNHT. And, with cooperation between the BLM, State, and the public, might be advantageous to all if the proposal is expanded to include not only signage regarding the existence of the Trail, but a well-planned, low impact OSNHT recreational retracement trail along the west side of the Santa Clara River between Gunlock State Park and the Shivwits Reservation on Park and BLM land with interpretive signage about the OSNHT and its resources. Such a solution would open this significant scenic, riparian, and geographically interesting intersection of Mojave Desert/ Basin and Range/ Colorado Plateau ecosystems, with important historic and cultural Trail values, to envisioned appropriate public use.
All signators to these comments request that BLM deliver notifications of future actions on this project to them, individually.
Sincerely,
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Patrick Malone, NPS Intermountain Region National Trails Administrator
Rob Sweeten, BLM OSNHT Administrator, Utah
Mathew Preston, BLM Utah State Director
Jason West, BLM St. George Field Office Manager