Jury convicts two in Recapture Canyon ATV protest
A year after protesters on ATVs deliberately violated a federal road closure through picturesque Recapture Canyon in southern Utah, a jury convicted two of the ride's organizers of misdemeanor charges.
San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman and Monte Wells, a fellow federal land-use critic, will be sentenced this summer on two misdemeanor charges, each of which carries a potential year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine. Recapture Canyon sits just outside Blanding, Utah, in San Juan County.
Lyman is one of three elected commissioners in San Juan County, while Wells publishes The Petroglyph, a news website focused on San Juan-area land-use issues and government. Neither responded to requests for comment Monday.
On May 10, 2014, Lyman led several hundred ATV riders on a protest into Recapture along a 12-mile trail the federal Bureau of Land Management closed to motorized vehicles in 2007 over concerns about damage to the environment and numerous Indian ruins, which include burial sites and cliff dwellings. Local officials, including Lyman, argue the BLM lacked the legal authority to keep the trail closed. Lyman argued the closure was unfair since the trail has been used by San Juan residents for generations.
"Today's verdict underscores the importance of protecting the nation's irreplaceable archaeological treasures. These ancient dwellings and artifacts are essential for understanding the story of the earliest inhabitants of the American Southwest," BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said in a statement. "As Congress has directed, the BLM will continue to protect these resources while managing the public lands for multiple-use and sustained yield on behalf of all Americans."
Jurors acquitted two other men in connection with the protest. The federal judge hearing the case barred Lyman and Wells from arguing the closure was illegal or that the trail was actually a valid county road — the core reason they organized the protest.
The Recapture protest tapped into deep frustrations many Westerners feel about land-use decisions made by bureaucrats sitting in air-conditioned offices thousands of miles away from the desert canyons, mesas and rivers they love. Those frustrations often surface in the form of seriously debated legislative proposals to return control of federal lands to the states or counties. Neither states nor counties receive tax money from federal lands, which in some cases make up to half of the entire land area of counties or states. Some BLM critics refuse to recognize the agency's authority, or the overall legitimacy of the federal government.
The Recapture protest came just weeks after a tense, armed standoff between BLM agents and Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy over cattle grazing on public lands, and one of Bundy's sons participated in the ATV ride.