FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Steens Mountain threatened by BLM road construction

ONDA files suit against BLM for Burnt Car roadwork.

Bend, Oregon Jul 30, 2009

The unique solitude and unfragmented sagebrush habitat of a protected wilderness area on Steens Mountain was destroyed by an illegal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) construction project last week. 

The agency built roads, ripped ancient juniper trees out by the roots and bulldozed native plants and sagebrush habitat, all without informing the public. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) argues BLM’s project threatens to establish illegal driving on the iconic desert mountain, destroys proposed wilderness areas, fragments critical wildlife habitat and opens the mountain to weed infestations.  

The BLM project, undertaken without any environmental study or public involvement, widened and built roads on dozens of miles of primitive or non-existent routes on Steens Mountain. The routes travel through the Blitzen River Wilderness Study Area and a citizen-proposed wilderness area. BLM even extended one new road into the protected Steens Mountain Wilderness and Donner und Blitzen Wild and Scenic River corridor.

Burnt Car Road is a primitive route, obscure in places, that runs through the Blitzen River Wilderness Study Area and peters out before reaching the boundary of the Steens Mountain Wilderness. These photographs show how this route looked before and after the new construction activities.

Construction of new roads and motorized vehicle routes is prohibited by law in designated wilderness areas and generally forbidden within the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area, which encompasses all of the routes involved here. Since the suit was filed, BLM has agreed temporarily to do no more work on these routes. ONDA is continuing to investigate how BLM could have authorized this major change to the landscape without public notice or opportunity to comment and without preparation of an environmental analysis under NEPA, and is asking in the lawsuit that BLM close and restore those parts of the route which were constructed in violation of the law.

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