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Show Rehearing Appeals Filed In Burr Trail Decision The three sides in the Burr Trail controversy Garfield County, federal government and environmentalists environ-mentalists have each, in separate actions filed petitions for rehearing with the U. S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to reconsider or clarify a decision it issued in June. The court, at that time, announced a split decision deci-sion which has left the three groups not sure where the issue stands. The three-judge panel upheld Garfield County and the federal government in saying the county doesn't need a permit to grade and widen the 66-mile-long dirt road, which runs from Boulder to Bullfrog. But four environmental groups won a ruling of the court that environmental studies are needed for any roadwork that would intrude into wilderness study areas. Some 12 miles of the route border a wilderness study area and a 10-mile section goes along another wilderness study area on the opposite side of the road. The project involves realignments, widening, blasting, improvements to the surface and an expected ex-pected large increase in traffic, the court said. Garfield County has asked the judges to specify that their (the court's) definition of "unnecessary or undue degradation of wilderness areas" is the same definition contained in the Bureau of Land Management's Man-agement's Interim Management Policy and guidelines. guide-lines. This policy governs the agency's actions toward to-ward wilderness study areas in the interim between their being designated and the time that Congress either sets them aside as wilderness or releases them to ordinary use. The environmentalists took issue with the appeals ap-peals court requirement that BLM write an environmental envi-ronmental report only for the part of the project that borders wilderness area. They claim that a section sec-tion of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act requires BLM to manage all public lands so as to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation and asked that the court amend its decision by requiring BLM to prepare an assessment of environmental consequences of the project on other public land, in addition to the wilderness study areas. In a case involving an environmental group, the Supreme Court rejected the idea of injunctions in this type of environmental suit. The court rejected the presumption that there would be irreparable injury in-jury in such cases. However, the 10th Circuit Court upheld the idea that there would be such injury, in-jury, according to the government's brief. The federal government has asked the court to eliminate language in the ruling that BLM should have taken more action than it did. The government doesn't think the BLM can file suit to prevent private pri-vate actions that could be presumed to affect wilderness study areas. At the present time the county is soliciting bids on the environmental assessment for wildnerness study border areas. It has taken no action to improve im-prove the Burr Trail, waiting for optimum weather and soil moisture conditions, expected by fall. |
