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Federal land managers have approved a paved road south through Uintah County to the remote Book Cliffs, a place coveted by deer hunters, solitude seekers and energy developers.
The county had sought permission to pave the road to the Grand County line for years, while others, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and some Grand County officials, feared it was a revival of a previously dropped "Book Cliffs Highway" idea that would cut through eastern Utah to Interstate 70.
Hunting groups, including the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Salt Lake City-based Mule Deer Foundation, opposed the project.
The BLM announced its decision Wednesday, allowing the county's transportation district to pave the road during the next six years.
"We're very excited," Uintah County Commissioner Mike McKee said. "That road will be very good for the county and the state, and it's going to be good for the environment."
Gas-field trucks use the road, which heads up the East Tavaputs Plateau at the pavement's end south of Ouray, and McKee said asphalt will reduce dust. It also will bring 55 mph traffic to a wildlife-migration corridor that currently has little traffic and, state biologists say, roadkill will increase.
The proposal has backing from energy companies hoping to tap the plateau's oil shale, tar sands and other resources. A state experimental tar sands mining lease is near the road's end.
SUWA Conservation Director Steve Bloch said the BLM's decision could face a legal challenge because it didn't consider the full environmental consequences coming from an eventual extension to I-70.
"It's a very wild place," Bloch said. "You get the occasional hunter and occasional oil and gas truck, but this area's very remote. Our fear is this highway will start the process to radically change that."
The BLM's Vernal-area environmental coordinator, Mark Wimmer, did not return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment.
McKee insists his county is not seeking an extension to I-70, so he believes the agency acted appropriately.
Grand County Councilwoman Audrey Graham said she expects the road to increase her county's expenses.
Gas-field workers who live in Grand Junction, Colo., will take I-70 and a Grand County dirt road to reach the new pavement, she said, increasing maintenance pressures.
"We'd be left with that," she said, "but we'd really see no benefit from it."