{"id":4497,"date":"2009-05-28T21:20:43","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T21:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/?p=4497"},"modified":"2009-05-28T21:20:43","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T21:20:43","slug":"paving-wilderness-peril-in-utahs-book-cliffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetsave.com\/articles\/paving-wilderness-peril-in-utahs-book-cliffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Paving Wilderness: Peril in Utah's Book Cliffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Utah’s Book Cliffs<\/a> exist as one of the largest expanses of land in the lower 48 states without a paved highway.\u00a0 The BLM<\/a>, however, is considering a project that would change that. Uintah County’s Seep Ridge Road Paving Project<\/a> proposes paving over an existing road, which would allow greater recreational (and other, including hunting and oil and gas exploration) access.\u00a0 The proposal states that:<\/p>\n

“the road is currently composed of dirt or native material and several segments of the existing road do not meet current federal and state road design standards for public safety. All projections indicate a continued substantial increase in light and heavy vehicle traffic on the road, primarily associated with energy development in the Book\u00a0Cliffs area.” (UT-080-08-0238 section 1.2)<\/p>\n

The existing, unpaved, road is 66 feet wide.\u00a0 The proposal would increase the width of the road to 150 feet – more than twice its current size.\u00a0 This new road would include sections of three-lane highway in order to facilitate slower, heavier traffic.\u00a0 Aimed at creating a more ‘driver friendly’ road, the project would redesign and reconstruct the existing road to be in compliance with current federal (AASHTO<\/a> Green Book) and Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT<\/a>) standards.\u00a0 With a newer, smoother, more driver friendly surface, the speed limit would also change; increasing from the current 35 mph to 55 mph.<\/p>\n

In all, the project would include 813 acres of land in order to carry out the proposed improvements.\u00a0 While 813 acres seems insignificant in comparison with the 455,000 acres of land within the Book Cliffs area, the impacts of such a proposal are<\/em> significant.\u00a0 The environmental analysis states that “the impacts on these sites from the\u00a0Proposed Action would be adverse” (UT-080-08-0238 section 4.3.1).<\/p>\n

While the environmental analysis claims that effects are “likely minimal” in most cases, we must look past the immediate and the ‘measurable.’ We must remember that wilderness is “an area where the earth and its community of life are\u00a0untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” (1964 Wilderness Act<\/a>). \u00a0We must look to the impact that greater accessibility to this section of the Book Cliffs connotes. Does this project leave the earth untrammeled? By paving a road, are we just visitors? Or are we moving in to stay?<\/p>\n

To pave one road seems like a small act. \u00a0But one road wounds the earth. \u00a0“To wound the earth is to wound yourself, and if others wound the earth, they are wounding you” (Bruce Chatwin<\/a>, The Songlines<\/a><\/em>, (New York: Viking Penguin, 1987). \u00a0We cannot afford to allow the contagion of industrialization to spread (one paved road at a time) across our wilderness. \u00a0By attempting to tame the untamed, the wild, we are, in turn, taming ourselves; for “we are a wild species…nobody ever tamed or domesticated or scientifically bred us” (Wallace Stegner<\/a>, “Coda: Wilderness Letter,” 1960). \u00a0And I, for one, refuse to live in a cage.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: wisconsinhiker<\/a> via flickr under Creative Commons License<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah’s Book Cliffs exist as one of the largest expanses of land in the lower 48 states without a paved highway.\u00a0 The BLM, however, is considering a project that would change that. Uintah County’s Seep Ridge Road Paving Project proposes paving over an existing road, which would allow greater recreational (and other, including hunting and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,27,33,35],"tags":[4903,5539,8504,24210,30179,36124,36139,36917,38208,38209],"spectra_custom_meta":{"tweet_this_url":["getnew"],"dsq_thread_id":["145151693"],"_oembed_ef3db03aba7d398092db6256b8035cd5":["