The Grand County Council last week held a closed session to discuss joining the State of Utah and others in defending the Bureau of Land Management’s resource management plan against a complaint filed in U.S. District Court by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and others.

No action was taken and it is not clear if or when the council will take up the issue again, according to Grand County Council Administrator Shawn Warnke. The council decided, during a meeting last week, to look into the recent amended complaint filed by SUWA.

Council chairman Bob Greenberg said this week that he has examined the amended complaint. He said the amendment shifts the focus of the original complaint from the sale of oil and gas leases near national parks to a new focus on the RMPs and travel plans prepared by the Moab, Price, and Vernal districts of the BLM.

The amended complaint and shift in focus follows a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina that halted the sale of 77 of the 132 parcels offered by the BLM for gas leases. In his order, Urbina stated that the RMP does not adequately address air quality issues. The Environmental Protection Agency and National Park Service also expressed those concerns publicly.

SUWA’s amended complaint cites a New York Times editorial that describes the RMPs as the Bush administration’s “one last favor to the oil and gas drillers and the off-road vehicle enthusiasts.” It states the BLM “failed to consider the impact of oil and gas development and ORV use on air quality.” The complaint also claims the BLM violated the National Environmental Protection Act and other laws by failing to consider issues of climate change and the impact of ORVs on cultural resources, and by refusing to consider designating any new wilderness study areas.

Greenberg noted that Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has reversed several last-minute rules issued by the Bush administration. Salazar withdrew the parcels offered for gas drilling and put leasing for oil shale on hold. Salazar might, Greenberg suggested, instruct the BLM to go back to the drawing board and remedy some of the issues raised by the SUWA complaint.

At the same time Greenberg said it is possible that the court might throw out the new RMP and reinstate the old RMP while the BLM starts over. He called that a “potential disaster,” because it would reopen 2,200 miles of roads closed by the Moab BLM, with county council concurrence. It also would reopen many areas to cross country travel, Greenberg said.

Without addressing the question of committing the county attorney’s time or budget to defending the RMP, Greenberg said he is not too worried that the entire RMP will be tossed out because, he said, it is in no one’s interest to throw away eight years of work. “If the county has vital interests at stake we will certainly act to defend the RMPs, but right now that’s hard to see,” he said.

Steve Bloch, SUWA’s conservation director, called the idea “out of the question.” Bloch said if the court ruled for SUWA it would have broad latitude to fashion a remedy that would allow continued day-to-day use of the new RMP while the BLM works to bring balance to it.

Uses are out of balance in favor of mineral development and off-road vehicle recreation, Bloch said. “Our objective is an increased focus on wilderness character landscapes and non-motorized recreation,” he said.

In a surprising turn of events, sage brush rebel Jerry McNeely, said he and many others he knows from that era, are defending the BLM and its new resource management plan. After years of fighting against the BLM McNeely became a BLM supporter during his eight years representing the county council in Moab BLM’s RMP process.

“I think it is one of the best RMPs that ever came out,” McNeely said, adding that he can see why, with a new administration, the environmental groups seek more wilderness designation. But he argued that the lawsuit is “overkill.” McNeely said if the county wants to resolve some of the conflicts it can work things out with the BLM in the same manner the county worked to have its say during the RMP process.