Overview
- Six organizations filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
- The challenge targets last month’s BLM reapproval of the Northern Corridor, a roughly 4.3–4.5 mile, four-lane route through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area in Mojave desert tortoise habitat.
- The complaint alleges violations of bedrock environmental laws, including protections for the threatened tortoise, and claims the agencies reneged on commitments from a 2023 settlement and remand.
- USFWS is named for authorizing impacts to tortoises tied to the right-of-way, while BLM’s decision reverses a 2024 rejection that had favored improvements to existing roads outside the conservation area.
- UDOT has begun staking the right-of-way as county and city leaders press the project for traffic relief, citing proposed mitigation including a land exchange adding about 6,800–7,000 acres as Zone 6, a package conservationists call inadequate.