ST. GEORGE, Utah — When the federal government issued what it said was a final rejection of the right-of-way for the proposed Northern Corridor highway above St. George, they offered as an alternative convert an existing roadway just above downtown as an alternative.
That group sued the BLM and Fish and Game over their initial 2021 approval of a proposed highway through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area linking Washington City and St. George. The response to that lawsuit was a new study that reversed course and has instead endorsed turning the existing Red Hills Parkway into an expressway.
“The Bureau of Land Management has selected the Red Hills Parkway Expressway as their preferred alternative because it meets all the traffic demands of Washington County's growing community,” said Holly Snow Canada, the executive director of Conserve Southwest Utah.
Corridor proponent and Washington County Commissioner Adam Snow said that doesn’t mean the Northern Corridor idea is over.
“It depends on who you talk to about going back to square one. If you're one of the environmental groups, if you're Conserve Southwest Utah and you just got exactly what you wanted, then yes, this resets the whole process,” Snow said. “If you listen to their posts, this is done, we're never talking about it again I'm glad they they have a sense of humor because that's not the truth.”
Red Hills Parkway stretches from the corner of Green Springs Drive in Washington City, past the front of Dixie Rock and Pioneer Park to the corner of State Route 18 in St. George where it becomes Snow Canyon Parkway and heads into Ivins.
“It actually performs better than the proposed Northern Corridor Highway and it's cheaper to build,” Snow said.
An assertion Snow disputed.
“Turns out the BLM doesn't build federal highways. And neither does the Fish and Wildlife Service. And they're not very good at it, obviously,” Snow said. “Because the plan that they just said for Red Hills Parkway being an expressway is an unbuildable, ridiculous road.
Snow said another east-west highway is needed on the other side of the hill from Red Hills Parkway to relieve the existing bottlenecks there.
Canada however believed county officials had done only 10 percent of the design work on such an expansion.
At the heart of the dispute is the Red Hills Conservation area, which is a habitat for the endangered Mojave Desert Tortoise. As part of the original plan, in return for designating 154 acres for the Northern Corridor, a new area called Zone 6 would be created to protect the tortoise and an endangered plant called the dwarf bear-poppy.
Zone 6 is the only place in the world where that plant grows.
“If there's no northern corridor, there's no Zone 6,” said Snow. “It's as simple as that.”
