At the edge of a gravel parking lot north of downtown St. George, Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke looked out across part of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
Right now, the view is a sea of orange dirt and desert shrubs. But Clarke and other local leaders believe this land will someday be home to a highway which could prepare the fast-growing region for future congestion.
“This road is going to go in,” Clarke said. “As long as the traffic need’s there and the engineers are saying that's the best place to put it, it's going to happen.”
But after years of heated debate, the road’s future is in doubt.
The Northern Corridor would be a four-lane, 50 mile-per-hour highway to connect the northwest and northeast sides of St. George by cutting through the southern edge of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
The Bureau of Land Management and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorized a plan for a 4.5-mile road in early 2021. The federal agencies put the plan on hold in late 2023 to revisit some of the analysis as part of a settlement with conservation organizations that sued to stop the highway.
The result is a 136-page draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement released on May 9 which examines six alternatives — including the current highway route — and highlights how a road through Red Cliffs could increase wildfire risk, spread invasive plants and threaten the endangered Mojave Desert tortoises that live in its path. The public now has one more chance to offer input before federal agencies issue a final decision, likely later this year.
This report is just the latest step in the project’s long, controversial history.
Local leaders have advanced the highway idea for years, believing it a necessary step to maintain the community’s quality of life. In response to the draft, a group of city and county officials — including Clarke — issued a statement warning residents the Biden administration has “taken over the role of traffic planner” for the community.
Conservationists, on the other hand, argue the highway would threaten a delicate ecosystem and set a dangerous precedent that could put other conservation areas at risk for development. A group of eight environmental organizations, including Conserve Southwest Utah, issued a joint statement in response saying the previous highway plan violates environmental law.
Conserve Southwest Utah Executive Director Holly Snow Canada said what she’s seen in the draft confirms her view that a highway through Red Cliffs isn’t the right choice.
“We have an opportunity to select an alternative that does not destroy the national conservation area and keeps our beloved Red Cliffs National Conservation Area intact and is better for the community as a whole.”
Her group wants federal agencies to deny the right-of-way and hopes that more public pressure can sway the decision in that direction.
“Many of us live, work and play in this area because of its spectacular beauty, because of its protected landscapes and habitat. And so this is an important time for people to speak up for the importance of those values.”
In Clarke’s view, all of the alternatives come with trade-offs.
If the highway isn’t built, more traffic could get funneled to existing streets as people continue moving to Washington County. Cliffs and ridges around St. George naturally bottlenecks driving across town. So he said the focus should be on how to limit the highway’s environmental impacts as much as possible.
“We can't stop growth,” Clarke said. “So our job is to manage it as best we can.”
The government’s report suggested that any of the alternative highway routes through Red Cliffs would likely fuel the spread of invasive plants and increase the future risk of wildfires because it would introduce seeds and ignition sources as it’s being built and as vehicles drive on the road. Wildfires and the spread of non-native plants are also connected, the report said. That’s because high concentrations of invasives such as cheatgrass can increase fire risk by providing more fuel and then the invasive plants can claim new territory as the land recovers after a burn.
The report found the introduction of non-native grasses — paired with climate change — has already increased the frequency and scope of fires in this part of Red Cliffs. The highway would create a permanent barrier that could stop wildfires from crossing, the report said, but that “may not offset the increase in fire probability and likely increase in fire frequency” that would come from the road’s construction and use.
The report also suggested that the highway would stress the tortoise population by fragmenting its habitat, welcoming more predators and bringing extra trash, noise and vibration from vehicles. It cites state research showing that the area around the proposed highway has already seen localized declines in its tortoise numbers — dropping over 50% from an estimated 3,409 adult tortoises in 2001 to 1,681 adults by 2023 — largely due to drought and wildfire.
Todd Tucci, an attorney with Advocates for the West, said these findings send a clear message.
“Things are not well. And the first thing you need to do to try to eliminate the threat is not drive a four-lane, high-speed highway through desert tortoise habitat.”
Advocates for the West is another group opposing the highway plan, and Tucci represented the coalition of organizations in their lawsuit that led to the new study. He said the new data reaffirms previous statements the BLM and USFWS have made over the past 25 years about how a highway in Red Cliffs could be destructive for tortoises.
“My takeaway is basically that there's now even a higher amount of information demonstrating the adverse impacts,” Tucci said.
“We now have a Mount Everest of scientific data showing that this highway will have extremely adverse impacts, not just to the desert tortoise but also to the quality of the environment.”
Three of the alternatives the report examines are different paths for the road to go through Red Cliffs — the route previously approved in 2021, one that would be farther north near T-Bone Mesa and another farther south near the conservation area’s border with St. George. A map within the report shows that the previously approved route would travel through one of the highest-density tortoise populations in this part of Red Cliffs, while the other two skirt around the edges of that area.
The three other alternatives do not include building a new road across Red Cliffs. One would involve expanding the existing Red Hills Parkway into an expressway and connecting it with Interstate 15. Another would turn St. George Boulevard and 100 South into a couplet of one-way roads moving vehicles east-to-west across downtown. The final option would be to terminate the Utah Department of Transportation’s right-of-way in the conservation area without selecting one of those other alternatives.
If the road isn’t approved to go through Red Cliffs, however, the report indicated it would remove current conservation protections from a piece of land southwest of St. George known as Zone 6, which is home to its own high-density tortoise populations. Roughly half of that land belongs to the state, Clarke said, and then would be at risk for development.
The county’s argument against the Red Hills Parkway and couplet alternatives isn’t that they couldn’t handle the traffic, Clarke said.
“Those are good ways to move a lot of vehicles. The question is just how does that impact the community?”
Expanding Red Hills Parkway would force some businesses to relocate, he said, and the road’s closed-access structure would make it harder for some drivers to get to popular spots like Pioneer Park. The couplet would also direct more traffic into downtown, he said, potentially damaging the neighborhood’s walkability and character.
For Tucci and other conservationists, the Northern Corridor debate represents a broader concern: What is the value of establishing a national conservation area to protect wildlife if it can one day be turned into a highway?
“It doesn't just put the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area at risk. It creates a risk for every national conservation area,” Tucci said. “Congress has told BLM to conserve, protect and enhance the conservation value. And that's a hard period.”
Clarke, on the other hand, views Red Cliffs as a unique case among protected lands because its enacting document specifies that BLM should identify a potential Northern Corridor highway route.
Still, Clarke is aware that some of his constituents are against it. Residents in neighboring Green Springs, for example, have spoken out against the plan, saying it would hurt property values and harm the conservation area’s natural beauty.
“I empathize with that,” Clarke said. “Some people live next to this. Some people will access these trails from their backyards, and they don't want to have anything out there. And that is obviously a fair perspective to have. But my job is to look big-picture.”
Even if the BLM revokes the highway’s right-of-way in its final decision, the county plans to keep pushing for it. That could mean tweaking the proposal and reapplying right away, he said, or maybe waiting to see if a future court decision or presidential election — the highway’s previous approval happened in the waning days of the Trump administration — opens the door a little wider again.
“The road is going to happen eventually,” Clarke said. “The question is just, ‘When?’”
The BLM is accepting public comments online about the Northern Corridor plan through June 24, 2024. It will also hold a public meeting in St. George where residents can ask questions or offer their thoughts, but the details of that meeting have not yet been announced.
