Our friend Jim Brewer has produced the best interactive map available for planning your trip to the Swell and mapping locations that you want to be sure are protected.

This latest interactive map provides valuable insight into the SRS TMP alternatives.  It includes a couple of the more popular maps as optional basemaps (Dick Brass Trails, Emery County OHV) as well as PLSS, surface management, BLM wilderness, and a TMA boundary    Also, you can choose from several different typical basemaps on the upper right for better route connection clarity.

The base Route Inventory is in red, so when you turn on each of the alternatives (in green) the red that remains are the closed routes.  Zooming in enables route labels and popups for each route will show details.  I had to fix labeling on a couple of routes in the Dick Brass system since they had them mixed up a little.

We also have added airstrips and fixed the Search feature so you can locate the route on the map.

My personal recommendations to start off with your map are the following:

• Turn On These Layers- BLM Wilderness Layer (show as hashed green lines), TMA Boundary, Surface Management Layer (Shows state lands in blue), Route Inventory (shows all routes inventoried, will display in Red at first)
• Good Map Layers on Left- Terrain with Labels and Imagery Hybrid for aerial views

We will post a video here soon to show you how to navigate the map.

If you’d like to contact Jim Brewer about a GIS project, his website is Western Expanse Inventory & Cartography

BLM Handbooks and Title 43 of the Code of Federal Regulations

These handbooks outline the processes that BLM uses in making land action decisions. We have highlighted key elements of each handbook that we believe will be most helpful for the reader.

NEPA Handbook This Handbook outlines the processes BLM follow in making all land use decisions.

Travel and Transportation Management Handbook This Manual provides detailed policy, direction and guidance for the comprehensive management of travel and transportation on Bureau of Land Management-administered lands and related waters.

Roads Inventory and Condition Assessment This Manual provides guidance on the policies and procedures BLM follows when inventorying roads and assessing their condition.

Primitive Road Inventory Handbook This Manual covers the procedures BLM follows for creating an inventory and assessment planning for Primitive roads, which are primarily our Class D road system.

BLM Road Manual 9113 This manual defines the BLM standards for Roads

Title 43 of Code of Federal Regulations Chapter II. The laws that the Department of Interior BLM must follow when administering our public lands. This section has not been highlighted, but there is a good index here that you can find relevant sections

This interactive map shows the open and closed routes in each of the San Rafael Swell Travel Management Alternatives. To display different results, click on the button in the upper right corner of the map. Thank you to AZ Backroads for this great tool.JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwc3R5bGUlM0QlMjJ3aWR0aCUzQTEwMCUyNSUzQmhlaWdodCUzQTUwMHB4JTNCYm9yZGVyJTNBbm9uZSUzQiUyMiUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGbWFwcy5hemJhY2tyb2Fkcy5jb20lMkZtYXBzJTJGc2FuLXJhZmFlbC1zd2VsbCUyRmluZGV4Lmh0bWwlMjMxMSUyRjM4Ljg2NDMlMkYtMTEwLjgzOTAlMjIlM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=

The Preliminary Alternatives for the San Rafael Swell were released today, and both Alternatives B and C have a huge number of routes proposed for closure. I have been in contact with the Price Field Manager and will report when we get further details and develop a plan of action. These Preliminary Alternatives are an extra step in the process before they issue the Draft EA. This gives us extra time to be able to analyze these routes and be ready to comment before the Draft EA is released. You can view the alternatives here by clicking here

Rose Winn Personal Profile

We had 2 big wins in the Utah State Legislature this last session.

S.B. 67 would have gutted the ability for Counties and Local Government to protect roads from being closed.  Class A, B, C and D roads from being closed across private land. At one point this bill had increased in size to almost 290 lines of text, barely resembling the text of the previous law. With Hurculean effort during the last hours of the bill being passed, the Senator’s office was flooded with almost 500 emails received overnight. The bill was amended the next day. You can read the text of the bill here

H.B. 471 was a bill introduced by Representative Phil Lyman and Senator Curtis Bramble. By the time the bill was passed, it had 12 CoSponsors, something very rare to have such strong support. The bill asserts ownership and exclusive jurisdiction of roads included on a county travel plan and requires due process before the federal government may close a road.
-The bill:asserts ownership and jurisdiction over roads included on a county’s class B and
class D road map or a county travel plan unless the road has been closed through
proper adjudicative proceedings;
-The bill  llows the state or a county to disregard any attempted closure of a road without due
process;
-The bill asserts that the burden of proof to show the need to close a road or to claim
ownership falls on the federal government;
-It allows the state and county to disregard the alleged closure.
This was a huge accomplishment, you can read the text of the bill here.

Many thanks to our OHV Advocate Brett Stewart for watching and influencing these bills.