OCR Text |
Show Off road use BLM redesignates 1.5 million acres A seasonal closure on 3,260 acres of public land alternately limits ORVs to exisiting roads and trails and closes the area to vehicle use due to critical antelope habitat. Information maps showing ORV designations will be available in the BLM Resource Area and District Offices. Detailed brocheures will be available to the public within a few months. BLM will be placing signs in the areas which are designated 1 limited or closed to ORVs. More than 1.5 million acres of public land in the Cedar City Bureau of Land Management District were officailly designated open to off-road off-road vehicles on Tuesday. This action follows publication of the designations in the Federal Register on that date. The purpose of the designations is to provide for ORV activities while protecting other resources, promoting the safety of all users, and minimizing conflicts among the other resource uses of those land. There ia a total of i 1,980,670 acres of public land affected by the new ORV designations. They are known as the Kanab and Dixie BLM Resource Areas located in Washington, Kane and Garfield counties, Utah. The remaining public land in the Cedar City District, the Beaver River and Escalante Resource Areas, will be designated in 1981 and 1983. About 84 percent of the public lands designated so far, or 1,662,590 acres, will remain open to ORV use. Vehicles will be limited to designated roads and trails on 67,160 acres (3.5 percent) and limited to all existing roads and trails on another 205,770 acres (10 percent). Approximately 2 percent or 41,891 acres will be closed to ORV use. |