April 29, 2014

Lance Porter,
BLM Canyon Country District Manager
82 East Dogwood
Moab, UT 84532
RE: Your letter of April 28, 2014 outlining BLMs position regarding citizen protest of the
closure of Recapture Canyon adjacent to Blanding, Utah. Also my written acknowledgment that
BLM identifying sites in Recapture Canyon does not constitute BLMs permission to ride on
this public trail.
Dear Mr. Porter,
On September 13, 2007 Recapture Canyon was closed to OHV use under authority of the Code
of Federal Regulations 43 (CFR) 8341.2 by Acting Field Manager, Sherwin N. Sandberg. The
closure order states that this is not intended to be a permanent order and it does not change the
designation in the 1991 San Juan Resource Management Plan (RMP) that the lands including the
recapture canyon area are open to cross-country motorized use.
In your letter to me dated April 28, 2014 you make a few statements that beg for correction:
1. You write that you appreciate the many conversations you have had with me over the last
couple of months regarding the proposed ride. We spoke about the ride once, at my
request, following our March 20, Canyon Country Partnership Meeting. You stopped by
my office briefly the first week of April and mentioned that you had completed a ROW
application for Rocky Mountain Power but we did not discuss this ride.
2. You also refer to my efforts to organize an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) ride along portions
of Recapture Canyon. It has never been my intention to organize an ATV ride. I wrote
an opinion piece that was published in the Deseret News on April 11, in which I
announced an excursion into Recapture. I wrote This time we are inviting all who would
like to join us to come and see for yourself. I think you will agree that the real damage is
the debris in the trails, the barricades blocking access, and the warning signs placed at
every turn. I had met previously with Juan Palma on March 27, 2014 to see if the BLM
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was able to give even a small token of sincerity in relation to this process which began 7
years earlier. He said, give me a week. I told him then, that if he would just have local
BLM mark the proposed reroute I would attempt to call off the excursion. I asked him
and you to make this a positive event by allowing our group of citizen-volunteers to
help reroute the trail. Our offer was earnest and made with goodwill, but more than two
weeks passed with no returns to my emails and phone calls. The article was published. A
week later the Salt Lake Tribune picked it up and did a more heated story which led to
the buildup of interest from people across the country. The story here is not Recapture
Canyon, but BLMs refusal to be amenable to the citizens of this area. There is a long
pattern of hostility from the BLM against the residents of my Commission district. The
May 10 event itself came about at a town hall meeting I held on February 27. Our action
is not aggressive or mean, it is purely defensive and intended to demonstrate that, despite
heavy-handed federal action against us and our community, we still look to the BLM to
respect the law and to follow their own rules and regulations which protect local interests
and appropriately recognize State and County jurisdictional authority. Within a few days
of the town hall meeting I called Don Hoffheins, the Monticello Field Manager, to inform
him of the plans. I told him that we did not want to surprise the BLM. He was
appreciative. Our action is an invitation to BLM to communicate with those who are most
harmed by the closure, yet still the only communication we receive from you is in the
form of threats.
3. You mention in your letter that In addition, any damage to resources protected by the
Archaeological Resources Protection Act will subject violators to further civil and
criminal penalties. Yet, for 7 years the BLM has failed to take any action to mitigate or
to prevent further damages. I asked Don Hoffheins in my initial call if BLM would be
willing to take measures to protect sites that were of concern. I said that the last thing
we want to do is willfully damage any archaeology and that we were very willing to do
what we could to avoid those places all together or to mitigate what the BLM might
consider damage. Even to this day we have been unable to get any cooperation from
the BLM in this respect. We would never damage something that we could just as easily
protect, yet BLM remains uncooperative. BLM is certainly complicit in respect to
damages to sites that only they know about and which they are unwilling to identify in
advance of this event.
4. You speak of the significant progress that you are making, yet we have heard that claim
since 2007. I was shocked three years ago when filed manager. Tom Heinline, after
promising a programmatic agreement, announced that it would be delayed by six months.
When we met six months later, he announced that he had never meant to imply that the
agreement would be ready but only a draft agreement for comments. So another year
went by, and what was supposed to be in place in August of 2011 was not actually
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completed until, as you say, last Fall, 2013. Shelly Smith, the District Manager, made
assurances as well which were far from realized.
The fact of the matter is that San Juan County has acted in good faith from the beginning of the
process. We even agreed, against our better judgment, to drop 7 miles of trail from our ROW
application. The 7 miles on the south end toward Perkins road was considered to be where all
the controversy lay, and by dropping that portion the County was assured by BLM and key
consulting parties that our ROW application for the north end could be done in a matter of weeks.
Four years later the BLM is stalled, and those same consulting parties now say granting the
ROW is rewarding illegal trail construction, while, at the same time, they pressure BLM to
make the closure permanent.
Another matter that was dealt with extensively throughout the consulting parties meetings was
the question of habitat for the Willow Fly Catcher. It was discussed at length and the BLM
concluded that there was no justification for considering the Willow Fly Catcher. Now, the BLM
pretends to have no choice but to work around habitat on the north end of the trail. There has
been no discussion in a meeting of the cooperating parties where this conclusion was validated.
In County coordination meetings the notion has been challenged and no evidence has been
provided. The field manager himself seems confused by this new mandate.
You say that this proposed ride will very likely hinder and possibly delay our ability to
complete this process. Can you honestly, eight years after the Countys application, make that
statement with a straight face? Is this caveat expected to incentive to the County to take an even
more passive role than we are already taking? Still you have given no timeline for completion of
the process and your past record of delay speaks for itself. In our January 27, 2014
coordination meeting you said that outside parties could force BLM to devote all their resources
to litigation thus delaying the Recapture process, or any other project of importance to the
County, indefinitely. I said at that time that, while this condition may be acceptable to the BLM
it was not acceptable to us, and that we would have to pursue other options which you would
probably not like. It is shameful for BLM to put the County in this dilemma. You speak of the
laws which will be violated by a ride down a dirt trail that has existed in one form or another for
at least 100 years, yet you willfully violate the same FLPMA law by failing to conform your
plans to the Countys master plan, and by ignoring the culture and customs of the largest
community of people in the County, who live within a mile of this canyon.
As an elected Commissioner in San Juan County, I claim the authority and I accept the
responsibility that comes with this office. Citizens are entitled to the rule of law not rule by
law. Rule of law serves as a check against the abuse of power, especially by governments. Our
ride is based upon this premise. BLM hangs its hat solely on the rule by law, which is a mere
tool for government to suppress in a legalistic fashion. Your letter is indicative of that. I do not
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consider my protest, or the protest of those who choose to participate on May 10, to be in
violation of the law but in support of it.
Finally, you asked me to give you a written acknowledgement that BLM identifying sites will
not be construed in any way to be BLMs consent for the proposed ride to take place. I hereby
acknowledge that to be the case. Had BLM been even slightly willing to work with the elected
officials of the County at any point during this process, they would have identified the sites two
years ago when we hiked Recapture canyon for that precise purpose. Your request now for
written acknowledgement can only be construed as another in a very long line of delay tactics.
Laird Naylor had agreed to hike into the Canyon with me yesterday, April 28, but your new
condition for written assurance from me put that on hold as well. I am scheduled to spend the
day, on May 6, with him to document the current condition of those sites which BLM believes
could be damaged by our ride. If that appointment is delayed or cancelled I will consider that to
be BLMs assurance that there are no sites on the trail that the BLM considers to be in jeopardy
of damage.
As you, I remain hopeful for a resolution to this issue.
Humbly,

Phil Lyman, San Juan County Commissioner

cc: Via Email - Commissioners Bruce Adams and Kenneth Maryboy, Juan Palma, Senators
Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch, Congressmen Jason Chaffetz and Rob Bishop
PS Shortly after receiving your hand-delivered letter which you described as from you to me, I
was contacted by a reporter from Environmental and Energy Publications who had received your
letter about the same time I did. I recognize that your communications and mine are public
record, but I did not realize that Greenwire was at the top of your mailing list.

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