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Show County Confident After SLC Burr Trail Hearing There was no settling the case before trial as attorneys for the National Park Service and Garfield County argued again over the Burr Trail in Salt Lake City on Dec. 12, testing the patience of a federal district judge. They'll be back on Jan. 17 to go at it again. Garfield County is confident of the strength of its position in the case in which the National Park Service has charged the county with trespassing and damaging park property along the Burr Trail in Capitol Reef National Park. "Almost everything I look at about this case is good for Garfield County," said the county's attorney Barbara Hjelle. And Hjelle, says Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston, "is probably the nation's expert on RS2477 roads." The Burr Trail is one. Hjelle began building her expertise when she started with the county on its first Burr Trail lawsuit in the 1980's. On Feb. 13 this year when Garfield County road crews cut back a slope on a blind curve just inside the eastern boundary of Capitol Reef National Park, the NPS claimed the county had no authorization from the park to do it and alleges the county damaged park property in the process. Garfield County maintained, as it has since the early 1980's, that it was simply working on its own road, has a legal right to do so, and is responsible for the safety of travelers using the road. U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins was asking for a clear definition from the federal government attorneys of what constitutes government land where the county's legal right of way ends and the government's begins. Federal attorneys seemed at a loss to supply an answer, causing Jenkins to say, "If it takes putting Secretary Bruce Babbitt in the witness chair, so be it." While Hjelle seemed confident about the county's position, she acknowledged the judge nevertheless was adamant that the county do no work on the section of the Burr Trail under litigation. Liston said the county has been keeping its crews busy on other roads in the county. She said that two of the four roads in the county on which the county is accused of trespass are class B roads roads for which the county receives funding from the state to maintain and which may be worked on from two to six times a year. Another is a class D road. Class D roads are maintained by the county less frequently and often upon request from ranchers and other individuals and agencies such as the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. On the fourth road currently in court, Liston says the county had its equipment about (See County Confident After Bun-Trail Bun-Trail Hearing On Page 2A) County Confident After SLC Burr Trail Hearing From Page One one-half mile into a Wilderness Study Area, on a road it had previously maintained without problems. The road leads to Escalante rancher Keith Carter's water well. There were no signs posted, she said. "Continual shifting of RS2477 policy and regulations by this administration has made maintenance of roads a whole new issue for counties. We are doing nothing different than we have done for decades, but now we are being trespassed for it," Liston said. Present in Salt Lake City for the Dec. 12 hearing were Hjelle, Commissioner Maloy Dodds, Garfield Gar-field County Attorney Wallace Lee, and St. George Attorney Ron Thompson who argued for the county. |
