Joshua trees meet very different fates in California, Arizona

The sun goes down on Joshua trees at Castle Mountains National Monument in eastern California on Feb. 1, 2016. Private land across not far from here was recently transfered to Mojave National Preserve in part to protect these iconic desert plants. (David Becker/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

It’s been an up-and-down month for Joshua trees in the region.

At Mojave National Preserve in California, thousands of the iconic desert plants recently won permanent federal protection, thanks to a land transfer that added 3,100 acres to the park 90 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, in Mohave County, Arizona, a Las Vegas businessman is defending himself from allegations of a “Joshua tree massacre” on about 100 acres of private property he’s clearing for agricultural development.

Al Barbarich, who owns the land about 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas and hopes to establish a nut and fruit orchard there, said his permit to clear the land did not require him to save any of the Joshua trees. But he said he arranged to have about 100 of them dug up and replanted at homes, a school and other locations in the area — all at no cost to those who received the plants.

“We tried to do something nice for the neighbors and the community,” he said.

Some area residents didn’t see it that way. In online posts and a Feb. 12 story in the Kingman Daily Miner newspaper, the developer was accused of wholesale Joshua tree murder.

Barbarich acknowledged that some plants were destroyed as the land was cleared, though he couldn’t say how many. He said a lot of the Joshua trees shown piled up in the photos posted by his critics were older plants with little hope of being successfully transplanted.

The negative publicity is “unfortunate,” Barbarich said, because he felt like he was trying, at his own expense, to do the responsible thing. “We wanted to preserve the trees to the extent that people wanted them,” he said.

FROM PRIVATE TO PROTECTED

The additional Joshua trees now under the protection of Mojave National Preserve in California were also once subject to the whims of private development.

The plants are growing on what used to be scattered pockets of private land within the boundaries of the 1.6 million acre desert preserve. Over the past decade, the nonprofit Mojave Desert Land Trust has been buying up such “private in-holdings” and selling or donating them to the National Park Service.

The latest land transfer, completed earlier this month, involved 110 scattered parcels ranging in size from 5 to 320 acres.

Frazier Haney, conservation director for the trust, said most of the land is located in Lanfair Valley near the eastern edge of the preserve, an area “really rich in Joshua trees and Mojave yucca.”


Haney said the trust purchased the property from “a variety of willing sellers” over the past nine years. The group paid a total of $1.5 million for the land and received $1.4 million from the park service in return.

That money will be used to buy other private property within the preserve and other desert parks in California, Haney said.

“Scenic views, sensitive habitat and historic resources that might otherwise be lost are now protected in perpetuity for all to appreciate and enjoy,” Greg Gress, regional realty chief for the park service, said in a written statement.

Haney said private in-holdings are not governed by the same rules and protections as the surrounding park land. Gradually eliminating the patchwork of in-holdings simplifies management of the entire preserve, he said.

‘STRICTLY WILLING SELLERS’

But Haney stressed that the trust isn’t trying to force private landowners off their property, some of which dates to the days of homesteading in the area roughly 100 years ago. “It’s strictly willing sellers,” he said.

Since it was founded in Joshua Tree, California, in 2007, the conservation group has donated more parcels of land to the park service than any other trust in the country, Haney said.

Mojave National Preserve has gained more than 30,000 acres — and countless Joshua trees — through the trust’s efforts.

Haney said more than 1,300 private parcels remain within the boundaries of the preserve, though, “so we’ve still got a ways to go.”

Courtroom defeat won't stop Utah in roads fight

By Amy Joi O'Donoghue
KSL.com

SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah and San Juan County may have lost a key fight over access to a road in Canyonlands National Park, but the roads war being waged against the U.S. government is far from over.

On Friday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Utah and San Juan County failed to prove that Salt Creek Canyon Road was a "public thoroughfare," meaning the road remains off-limits to their rights-of-way claims under a Civil War-era statute.

“It would be mistake to consider this decision limiting us from going forward in our other road cases,” said Harry Souvall, public lands section chief for the Utah Attorney General's Office. He added that the decision provides clarity on such issues as statutes of limitations, but does not shut down the state and counties' case in claims to 12,000 other roads.

In their ruling, justices rejected the state's argument that uninterrupted periodic use over a 10-year period was sufficient to establish a claim to the dirt road — and therefore access by motorized vehicles.

"The state and county failed to carry their burden of establishing 10 years of continuous public use of the Salt Creek Road as a public thoroughfare prior to (establishment) of the Canyonlands National Park in 1964," the opinion read.

It would be mistake to consider this decision limiting us from going forward in our other road cases.
–Harry Souvall, Utah AG's office

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance hailed the ruling as key to protecting valuable natural resources within Canyonlands.

"For Salt Creek Canyon, it is a great decision," said Steve Bloch, attorney with the organization. "It means the only perennial stream in the park outside the Green and Colorado rivers will remain protected from signficant adverse impacts of motorized travel."

The issue

At issue is the question of motorized use of an unimproved 12.3-mile road that is intertwined with a creek bed in Salt Creek Canyon. The state argued that periodic historic use by cattle ranchers, uranium miners and tourists was enough to elevate the route to claims under the so-called RS2477 statute.

Before the 1995 implementation of a backcountry management plan for the park, access to the road was unrestricted and then modified to a permit-system only.

At that time, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance challenged the park service's decision to keep the road open, arguing that continued motorized use of the trail ruined the perennial stream and posed risks of damaging prized archaeological resources in the area.

By 2004, the park service decided to lock the gate on the road, prompting the lawsuit by San Juan County and the state, which claimed its historic use over the years constituted status as a roadway or public thoroughfare.

The state pointed to grazing uses in the late 1880s or early 1890s that gradually increased through the 1950s, uranium mining and exploration in the 1950s, and uses of the canyon by Boy Scouts and tourists beginning as early as the 1950s.

Supporters of preserving access, including the Utah Shared Access Alliance and the Blue Ribbon Coalition, also argued that the road is the primary route for tourists to reach several scenic sites within the park, including Angel Arch.

While the state argued that no "particular frequency" was required under the claim as long as there was no formal interruption of access by the federal government, the court disagreed in its Friday decision, upholding the ruling of the U.S. District Court for Utah.

"While we agree uninterrupted use is necessary, it is not alone sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a public thoroughfare for purposes of RS2477," the court said. "The intensity of public use remains a component in determining the existence of a public thoroughfare."

Important for upcoming cases

Bloch said the Salt Creek ruling helps to flesh out important case law for other road claim cases to come.

"This ruling is another piece of the puzzle in figuring out what types of claims are not sufficient," he said. "We are going to continue to scrutinize it closely and rely on it to defeat similar claims that stream bottoms and cow paths and other dirt trails are highways."

Bloch predicted that the ruling may come into play with another case in Kane County that is also on appeal before the 10th Circuit and scheduled to be heard in September.

There are only 14,000-plus more claims to go. The state has a long, hard road to hoe if they are going to continue this push.
–Steve Bloch, SUWA attorney

"There are only 14,000-plus more claims to go," he said. "The state has a long, hard road to hoe if they are going to continue this push."

Souvall, however, stands by the distinction that the state should only have to prove "available" use over a 10-year period, and frequency need not come into play in a legal claim for the right of way. However, he added, the state is developing evidence of "frequency of use" in other road cases to meet the standard.

That nuance in the argument may prompt a request for an en banc hearing by the full panel of judges to weigh the merits of the state's claims to Salt Creek Road.

Utah is in its second year of an all-out battle over access to roads or routes in 22 of its 29 counties. In 2012, the claims were consolidated into one lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior over RS2477 roads, which were part of a transportation network established via an 1866 law to foster movement in the West.

While the statute has since been repealed with the adoption of the Federal Land Management Policy Act, the state's and counties' rights of way to roads that already existed were grandfathered in.