Washington County offers $3.78 million for SITLA land in response to the Northern Corridor

The Washington County Commission took another effort Tuesday toward building a new "Northern Corridor" highway across the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, offering to buy 450 acres of state-owned land to facilitate the project.

The land is located in Zone 6 of the Desert Reserve, southwest of central St. George, and would in theory go toward mitigating any potential impacts of the Northern Corridor by setting aside a different area for the endangered Desert Tortoise species.

The land, currently owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), would be purchased at $8,400 per acre, which equates to the county spending a total of $3.78 million.

The three-person county commission voted unanimously in support of the proposal. The official closing date for this sale is March 31, 2022, according to the SITLA certificate of sale.

The Northern Corridor is a proposed four-lane 4.5-mile road that would connect drivers from Interstate 15 to State Route 18 by crossing a large section of the reserve just to the north of St. George's downtown. It would connect Washington Parkway on the I-15 side to Red Hills Parkway at a spot just east of the parkway's interchange with SR-18.

It it clears the required environmental hurdles, the Northern Corridor could be built at what is an estimated cost of $162.6 million, according to the 2019 Regional Transportation Plan prepared by the Dixie Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The proposed highway has long been controversial, though, as it would need to cross through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, which is a designated conservation area for the Mojave desert tortoise.

Conserve Southwest Utah, a local environmental conservation group, has lobbied hard against the road, with opponents arguing that adding county-owned conservation land to Zone 6, located across the city in a completely different area, wouldn't be productive for environment conservation or for the health of the desert tortoise.

This group says half of Zone 6 — a 6,800-acre addition to Red Cliffs conservation area that is located west of Bloomington and south of Santa Clara — is already a conservation area for tortoises and therefore the Zone 6 designation has no additional conservation benefits. The other half of Zone 6 is owned by SITLA and has scars from heavy outdoor recreation and isn’t “compatible with protection of threatened species like the desert tortoise,” according to the group's website.

But Washington County officials say Zone 6 already has a high density of these tortoises and that adding this separate conservation area would protect the tortoise from wildfires. Without the Zone 6 designation, this area would eventually be developed, according to the county’s website. This designation also protects recreation areas like the Moe's Valley bouldering area from development.

Local officials say the Northern Corridor is needed to handle the increased traffic load Washington County will see as its population grows over the coming decades. The county estimates the Northern Corridor would reduce traffic hours by 300,000 per year by 2040.

“Our goal at the outset was to strike a balance between protecting the tortoise and meeting our community's transportation needs,” Eric Clarke, the Washington County attorney, told The Spectrum in January of 2021.

Increased traffic is a concern since by 2035 the population of Washington County is expected to hit over 355,500 people, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah.

This Northern Corridor project was approved in January 2021 when the right of way permit was issued by the Trump Administration in the weeks before Joe Biden was sworn-in as president. The permit approval in January marked a victory for local government officials who had been trying to get approval for the Northern Corridor project for years while being met with strong opposition from environmental conservation groups.

These conservation groups include Conserve Southwest Utah, who have long opposed the Northern Corridor saying this project breaks conservation promises made when the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve was created and would do “irreparable damage” to the environment, according to its website.

Conserve Southwest Utah is so opposed to the Northern Corridor that it and six other conservation groups filed a lawsuit in June against the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to stop the construction of the project.

The lawsuit is currently in the middle of procedural delays. The most recent development is that Washington County and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) — which signed onto the lawsuit as intervenor defendants — has petitioned for a venue change for the proceedings.

Presently the venue for the Northern Corridor lawsuit is Washington D.C. but Washington County and UDOT want the proceedings to happen in Utah, arguing this decision only impacts Utah lands. This venue change request is opposed by both the conservation groups and federal agencies involved in the lawsuit.

The federal agencies argue in court documents the case should be heard in Washington D.C. since the approval for the Northern Corridor project came from then Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and therefore should be heard in a federal venue not a state venue.

“A significant part of the claims arose in [the Washington D.C. district] because the Secretary chose to exercise his express statutory authority,” read court documents filed by BLM and the Department of the Interior.

This lawsuit is hanging over this project and could potentially nullify the construction of the Northern Corridor. If the courts decide in favor of the conservation groups and stop the Northern Corridor, Washington County would return the land purchased from SITLA, said Almquist.

“If the end result isn't what we're expecting, we'll go back to our original positions,” said Almquist.

Within the land purchase certificate from the county and SITLA, it says the intended purpose of the 450 acres being sold is for conservation and not development. The certificate does have language that allows Washington County to change the use of the land including ground disturbing activities such as construction, if the county consults with SITLA on the changes.

“[Potential changes] shall be subject to the archaeological contexts, data, artifacts, specimens, structural remains, features, and deposits, if any, being preserved, recovered, or otherwise treated in a manner satisfactory to SITLA,” according to the sale of certificate.

But any changes away from conservation for the land would be approved by the sole discretion of SITLA, according to the certificate of sale.

Sean Hemmersmeier covers local government, growth and development in Southwestern Utah. Follow on Twitter @seanhemmers34. Our work depends on subscribers so if you want more coverage on these issues you can subscribe here: http://www.thespectrum.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Washington County offers $3.78 million to SITLA for land conservation