A federal judge has handed Utah and two counties a preliminary victory in a decadelong dispute over ownership of dirt roads and trails crossing public lands that were authorized by a 19th-century mining law.
The decision by Judge Clark Waddoups of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah doesn’t resolve the broader, long-standing dispute over title to an estimated 35,000 miles of dirt roads crisscrossing federal lands in the state. But it is the first ruling among 15 bellwether trial cases that will set the stage for the more than 12,000 rights-of-way claims in a 2012 lawsuit by the state and numerous counties.
The federal court in 2020 estimated it would take more than 20 years to analyze the validity of the rights-of-way claims. The court, therefore, chose 15 roads to set a precedent for the remaining cases.
Waddoups’ ruling issued last week deals with the first two of those 15 roads.
