Washington County
Beaver Dam Wash and Red Cliffs National Conservation Area Plans

The NCA Resource Management Plans will be critically important.  Congress designated these two NCAs specifically “to conserve, protect, and enhance . . . the ecological, scenic, wildlife, recreational, cultural, historical, natural, education, and scientific resources” of these fragile areas.  The Beaver Dam Wash and Red Cliffs NCAs are home to a variety of species found nowhere else in Utah, including the Gila monster, desert kangaroo rat, speckled rattlesnake, desert iguana, western red bat, common black hawk, brown-crested flycatcher, and Costa’s hummingbird, as well as the federally listed desert tortoise.  It is critical that the NCA plans BLM adopts include adequate measures to protect these species and their habitat.

Throughout much of the NCAs, Congress restricted motorized travel to a handful of specific roads (see BLM’s Beaver Dam Wash NCA Fact Sheet and Red Cliffs NCA Fact Sheet.  In other portions of the NCAs, travel is limited to designated routes that will be determined in this planning process.  It is essential that BLM limit the extent of motorized routes in the NCAs in order to protect the species and resources for which the NCAs were designated.