The long debate over a proposed highway corridor through a national conservation area in Utah is heating up again.
Just prior to the start of the ongoing federal government shutdown last week, the Bureau of Land Management issued a draft environmental assessment that analyzes a request by the state of Utah to run the corridor through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
The Interior Department in 2021 approved the so-called Northern Corridor project during the final weeks of President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
But BLM in December, during the Biden administration, rejected the highway corridor, and instead approved an alternative plan that called for making improvements to an existing roadway overseen by the city of St. George that runs south of the Red Cliffs NCA, and away from a preserve for the federally threatened Mojave Desert tortoise.
