WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – A group hoping to protect the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area from all-terrain vehicles faces resistance in its lawsuit against the Department of the Interior.
The DOI on March 29 filed its motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed earlier this year by the National Parks Conservation Association, which alleges “severe” damages has already been found at the NRA in Utah.
Glen Canyon is a popular spot for off-road vehicles. A new management plan to address and manage ORV use restricts where and how they can be used.
“Although NPCA provides specific allegations as to a member’s general use of the Recreation Area to support its standing, it makes no allegation whatsoever that any of its members use, or plan to use, the play area,” the motion to dismiss says.
“Therefore, NPCA fails on the face of the complaint to show any actual injury and fails to allege a basis for standing for its first three claims.”
Other claims are not ripe for consideration, the motion says, because rules that would let the subject trail to be used by ORVs haven’t been formally passed.
“Any future ORV use on the Flint Trail is purely hypothetical at this point,” the motion says.
The suit, filed Jan. 19 in District of Columbia federal court, seeks to protect areas where “severe damage” has already been found at the NRA, located in Utah.
“That regulation will undoubtedly result in severe damage to Glen Canyon NRA’s resources, which in many respects are fragile and vulnerable,” the suit says.
The lawsuit notes that the National Park Service has already found that ORVs are known to affect resources like soil, water quality, air quality, vegetative communities, wildlife and watersheds.
“Congress has mandated that NPS manage Glen Canyon NRA and other units of the National Park System in a manner that will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations and to depart from that mandate only as Congress has ‘directly and specifically provided,’” the suit says.
“Congress has not made any such provision for ORV use in Glen Canyon NRA.”