The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have chosen an alternative route for the long-debated Northern Corridor Highway near St. George.
The agencies endorsed a plan to expand an existing road, the Red Hills Parkway, into an expressway and build an interchange to connect it with I-15. This would avoid putting a highway through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, which is home to threatened Mojave Desert tortoises.
Environmental groups quickly applauded the move.
The announcement “marks a critical step toward ensuring lasting protections for Red Cliffs National Conservation Area,” said Conserve Southwest Utah Executive Director Holly Snow Canada.
“We urge elected officials to seize this opportunity to adopt smarter traffic solutions that better support the long-term health of our local economy and safeguard our irreplaceable public lands.”
Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke, however, said they disagree with the government in every way. “Basically what they're saying is ‘No.’”
The alternative route, he said, hasn’t been studied enough from an engineering perspective so the county doesn’t know how much effort and money it would take to build it.
“There's a ton more traffic analysis that would need to be done, but we've never put any money into doing it because no traffic engineer has ever said that we could expand Red Hills Parkway in the way that they're proposing.”
If the expressway alternative becomes a reality, it could also complicate another contentious issue in St. George. The BLM’s statement specifies that if the highway is not built through the conservation area, a nearby piece of land called Zone 6 would lose its protection.
The state trust land was added to the conservation area in 2021 when the highway plan was approved. Without protections, Utah officials have said 2,782 acres of Zone 6 could soon be developed into homes, which concerns the rock climbers and mountain bikers who recreate there.
“It’s crystal clear that the protections in the Bearclaw Poppy and Moe’s Valley areas go away,” Clarke said.
The BLM’s original Northern Corridor highway approval in 2021 would have allowed a four-lane, 4.5-mile highway through the conservation area. After a lawsuit from conservation groups, the agency put that approval on hold in 2023 to take a closer look at the project’s environmental impact. The new impact study endorsing the alternative plan indicates the BLM will officially remove approval of the original highway in its record of decision expected this December.
Local leaders have long said the original highway is necessary to prepare for future growth. Washington County filed a lawsuit in August that said revoking the previous approval goes against federal law and the agencies’ own rules.
Conservationists counter that building a road through Red Cliffs would set a dangerous precedent that could put other protected lands at risk for development — in addition to the direct environmental impacts. The BLM’s latest study suggests the original highway project would increase the risk of wildfire and spread invasive grasses.
“With a more comprehensive review, it is even more clear that this cherished landscape should be left intact for our community’s quality of life,” Snow Canada said.
“We anticipate the Bureau of Land Management’s final record of decision will once and for all put to rest this ill-conceived highway proposal.”
The highway debate may be far from over, however, especially after former President Donald Trump’s reelection.
“I would be shocked if the new administration didn't fix this,” Clarke said.
The BLM approved the original plan during Trump’s previous term, and the incoming administration would have the option to reverse course and allow the highway.
Washington County may or may not take additional legal action, Clarke said, depending on how the incoming Trump administration acts. What he doesn’t want, however, is for the Northern Corridor to continue flipping back and forth, each time a new president gets elected.
“This issue has to have some closure, and that closure may not happen until we actually get in front of a federal judge.”
