Wilderness Acreage in Utah

[paulj]

I'll defend it, the BLM and the State of Utah saw the train wreck that is the ARWA. The BLM can't find 1/3 of the acres SUWA calls 'Wilderness', the State can't. This agreement put things back into the realms of acceptable case by case proposals and designations rather than boundary less sweeping designations that would be clarified and detailed after becoming law.
....

You seem to see a direct connection between “Norton-Leavitt wilderness settlement”
and ARWA. I haven't seen the full text of the settlement, but I gather that it did 2 things:
- largely give the state and counties what they wanted with respect to the Civil War era road act.
- tell the BLM to stop evaluating land for new or expanded WSAs.

It did nothing , as far as I can tell, to further or stop consideration of ARWA within congress.

Was Norton, or the state of Utah for that matter, all that concerned with ORV and expedition type travel in these areas? Or was the real focus on commercial matters, particularly oil, gas and other mineral exploration? Warnings from ORV and related groups may be a good way of triggering letters and emails from a grassroots level, but I suspect that the heavy-lifting in opposition to Wilderness designations comes from commercial interests. The controversial leases in Dec 2008 are indicative of the pressure that BLM felt to give oil & gas production priority.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Here's what I wonder about all these heated wilderness discussions...

If the areas in question have been studied extensively.
If the managing agencies are publishing travel management plans that address access...
and the land is federally owned...

What is wrong with efficiently packaging multiple areas together for wilderness consideration?

Because that Wilderness consideration is in direct conflict with the travel management plans released with the latest & greatest Resource Management Plans (which were signed into law just this last year). Again, we (the states OHV community) are in major agreement with the latest RMP's and their associated travel plans, even though those travel plans closed thousands of miles of routes, made nearly 99.9% of areas limited to designated routes (eliminated hundreds of thousands of acres of cross country travel). Those same RMP's designated Lands with Wilderness Characteristics, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, low impact areas, etc. These are brand new RMP's in 6 of Utah's 11 BLM districts. SUWA threatened to sue before they had even made a final decision on the alternatives. If they wanted to designate Wilderness on all the areas the BLM has identified as meeting the definition, lets do it... but ARWA cohorts will obviously not compromise.

The studying has been done, it's time to make a difference. It's not like these areas just popped up on the radar and someone in New York suddenly found them to be worth of protection. People in Utah have been working on protecting them for a long time.

I feel like we are having a major communication issue here? The BLM can only find 1/3 of the "Wilderness" that an inventory of un-trained and biased individuals were able to find. Hardly studied and hardly scientific. If you are suggesting we designate those 3.x million acres the BLM identified as Wilderness, I'm 110% behind it. If your suggesting we take the word of the ARWA as any valid indication of what is actually on the ground in Utah, I'm 120% in disagreement and with all due respect I feel my experience within Utah reserves that right. (spent this last weekend covering the grounds contested by this very conversation and bordered by nearly a half dozen different WSA's).

What have pro access groups done to protect specific routes and areas? What maps have pro access groups created? What studies have pro access groups commissioned?

I'm starting to feel like a broken record here and I can only take your re-worded questions as bating to some degree.

The U4WDA and countless other OHV advocacy groups, clubs and Associatiosn worked tirelessly to inventory routes and work through the input process of the RMP revisions to protect and maintain our route access. While we did have some losses the RMP's were issued and we did OK. Our maps are the BLM's maps. Our studies are the BLM's studies.

Would it be nice to have a huge "pro-access" budget to study these issues outside of the BLM process? Sure, instead we are all too busy convincing hypocritical OHV users that their impacts are actually part of the 'problem' they think exists. To those people (not directly saying you are one). Stay out of Utah, your "impact" is closing our lands. (I use the word impact loosely for reasons I feel like I have described over and over).

In my area, most OHV groups participate in an occassional trail clean up and think that is enough...

Clap for you. We've been doing projects like that all over the state for many years. Our member clubs and Associations have adopted trails all over the state, do annual cleanups, do annual trail repair projects, etc. Nothing new.

...OHV users are going to need to step up and start helping designate routes and demonstrate their value to recreationalists and local economies if they hope to win. There is a reason why boots, hooves, and bikes get some primo access and OHVr's do not. Address those reasons, designate the lands appropriate for the activity, and let the good times roll.

Done, done and been done. We worked with the BLM on forming an alternatives for the different RMP's. We worked with the Counties that submitted comments on RMP's, we sent our own comments on RMP's, we hosted letter writing party's so our members could wring letters to comment on the RMP. Your apparent visualization of the situation here in Utah is skewed at best. Sorry, just calling it as I see it. All of these things have and will do absolutely nothing to change the minds of those presenting the ARWA as the end-all solution to 'saving Utah'. Its as simple as that.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

You seem to see a direct connection between “Norton-Leavitt wilderness settlement”
and ARWA. I haven't seen the full text of the settlement, but I gather that it did 2 things:
- largely give the state and counties what they wanted with respect to the Civil War era road act.
- tell the BLM to stop evaluating land for new or expanded WSAs.

It did nothing , as far as I can tell, to further or stop consideration of ARWA within congress.

Congress cannot conciously designate large tracts of land into Wilderness containing roads with uncontested county claimed roads. While there may be some minor inclusions or 'mistakes' if they counties are allowed to claim the roads (which I am 100% in support of), the Wilderness cannot strip that legal right from them. Would it stop the ARWA? Of course not. Would it make them detail some of the segments and likely reduce their overall proposal. Yes.

Was Norton, or the state of Utah for that matter, all that concerned with ORV and expedition type travel in these areas? Or was the real focus on commercial matters, particularly oil, gas and other mineral exploration? [/QUOTE]

We have discussed this at length here on ExPo, maybe not in this thread but I don't have the energy to convince fellow OHV users that our routes need protection any further in this thread.

Yes our elected officials are very sympathetic with ORV travel and its importance to ranching, tourism, access, hunting, etc. Events like Easter Jeep Safari were built by our local governments.

Do the extractive industries play a major role? One would be naive to say otherwise. But do realize that in the rural communities of Utah things like OHV's, oil wells and coal mines are religious. The vast majority of the epic trails in Utah are a direct result of oil, mining, gas and ranching. Moab was created on the back of mining. Economies in counties like Emery and Carbon exist almost solely on these industries as they have for 100+ years. But how come the last 100 years of these industries combined with ranching and ORV use we can still find Wilderness with a capped well site and a runway left over from the Uranium boom? And that was with old school drilling and mining processes, modern practices are far less invasive. So if the industry of yesteryear can be Wilderness eligible, how come the industry of today can't in the years to come? Why can't our state access our SITLA lands for development however we want?

Don't fog the issue. The creators and groups behind the ARWA want to stop OHV access all over the state of Utah. They have made no hidden agenda.

I'm still waiting for you gents to tell my how you so easily discount your impacts on trails like this? If driving on a trail that has existed for 50+ years has some level of impact in your mind, some impact that must be eliminated in order to protect this land for the future generations. How do you drive off-road anywhere and not feel your impact has the same net result albeit in a different location? I really do wish I could write-off things so easily in my personal life. Be very clear that I don't feel my off-road impact needs to be mitigated, the fact a hundred year old route can still be Wilderness is proof enough that the situation on the ground is sitting just fine.

 

[sinuhexavier]

This is something I don't get... Maybe I'm naive... But doesn't OHV stand for Off Highway Vehicle? Don't we all drive licensed for street use vehicles?

The debate seems to come up over and over about OHV's being shut out... Well, how does that pertain to us, overlanders, expeditioners and car campers? I personally wouldn't miss it one bit if "buggy's" "atv's" or those atv bred with a jeep weren't allowed in the areas I frequent. I rarely see car tracks blazing off trail, most of the time it's an atv track.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

This is something I don't get... Maybe I'm naive... But doesn't OHV stand for Off Highway Vehicle? Don't we all drive licensed for street use vehicles?

Once you leave the pavement on BLM land they now consider you on an OHV route and an OHV user. There are some places that have vital distinctions between the two ie GCNRA in which ATV's are not allowed on HITR, only street legal vehicles. These are very isolated cases and I can only think of a couple instances in which federal land managers other than National Parks and Rec Areas do this, one is the Timpanooke Route on the Forest Service in which its open to street legal routes only. Others would be the National Park inclusions such as Elephant Hill, Maze, etc.

The debate seems to come up over and over about OHV's being shut out... Well, how does that pertain to us, overlanders, expeditioners and car campers? I personally wouldn't miss it one bit if "buggy's" "atv's" or those atv bred with a jeep weren't allowed in the areas I frequent. I rarely see car tracks blazing off trail, most of the time it's an atv track.

I agree with you on the blazed tracks in most cases. Unfortunately when these routes are closed to motorized and mechanized travel per Wilderness, we all lose out. Whether your on your mountain bike or your Disco, motorized/mechanized are lumped together.

It would be an interesting distinction, however the intent and description of actual Wilderness not to mention the ARWA doesn't have any way to feasibly leave a road open to a street legal vehicle while closing it to others. Add to that the fact a dirt bike or 4wheeler can easily be legally plated for street use in the State of Utah after recent legislation. While they cannot ride them down I-15, they can skirt the 'street legal vehicle' restrictions that stopped them before.

I think there are more proactive ways to curve the 'impact' and rogue OHV use.

The recent BLM RMP's while closing trails and restricting open areas had a much worse effect I believe on organized travel. They greatly increased the permit restrictions for all users. The way the permits are worded now even a family reunion or scout trip could be required to get a permit, and if your charging money or hosting it on behalf of a commercial entity its almost a sure case you'll be required to file for a Special Recreation Permit. That permit can take up to 180 days to get and you are required to pay the costs of preparation by the BLM. We are working on a permit now for a organized run we are hosting in the Swell in May And here I would argue that the organized groups are far more likely to be responsible and enact peer enforcement, yet they will have an increasingly hard time recreating on public lands in the future. Permits are a big deal and add Wilderness and WSA's into the equation and they will get very difficult to obtain. I've been working with a handful of groups on these issues and the long term outlook is somewhat grim.

 

[Wonderland]

Here's what I wonder about all these heated wilderness discussions...

If the areas in question have been studied extensively.
If the managing agencies are publishing travel management plans that address access...
and the land is federally owned...



In my area, most OHV groups participate in an occassional trail clean up and think that is enough. OHV users are going to need to step up and start helping designate routes and demonstrate their value to recreationalists and local economies if they hope to win. There is a reason why boots, hooves, and bikes get some primo access and OHVr's do not. Address those reasons, designate the lands appropriate for the activity, and let the good times roll.

The studies are going to prove what?

That some humans have unquenchable thirst to control things that they can't control, Man and nature.

That environmentalist some how are above everyone else? Where do these people live anyway? I am fairly sure that the homes they live in were once wild lands, "wilderness" if you will.

That humans are a mere blip on the timescale of the earth, that the planet has been far worse than the human race.

The Earth is by far the largest cause of environmental destruction...


You're sure are making broad sweeping statements about OHVers, you're one yourself correct, or else you wouldn't be on a forum that is devoted to vehicle dependent travel.

We spend and awful lot of time, money and energy to ensure access. We do quite a few "cleanups" I have never in my life seen hikers/environmentalist on these cleanups, maybe they are too busy to physically do something to take of the environment. They will throw a bunch of money at their ideals, though.

 

[paulj]

SUWA's resource page regarding the Norton 2003 'no more wilderness' policy. The media packet has articles for major newspapers (SLT, NYT, LA,etc) from the time, generally describing it as a major change (reversal) in decades old Federal policy toward wilderness.

http://www.suwa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=no_more_wilderness

 

[cruiseroutfit]

SUWA's resource page regarding the Norton 2003 'no more wilderness' policy. The media packet has articles for major newspapers (SLT, NYT, LA,etc) from the time, generally describing it as a major change (reversal) in decades old Federal policy toward wilderness.

http://www.suwa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=no_more_wilderness

Nothing groundbreaking there?

Rather than post links from the head sponsor of the ARWA and an on the record anti-OHV establishment, why don't you spend a minute answering this:

How you so easily discount your impacts on trails like this? If driving on a trail that has existed for 50+ years has some level of impact in your mind, some impact that must be eliminated in order to protect this land for the future generations. How do you drive off-road anywhere and not feel your impact has the same net result albeit in a different location? I really do wish I could write-off things so easily in my personal life. Be very clear that I don't feel my off-road impact needs to be mitigated, the fact a hundred year old route can still be Wilderness is proof enough that the situation on the ground is sitting just fine.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...When are we going to stop picking apart one another's posts and start posting some links to access groups who are actually making a difference besides lawsuits and cleanups?

U4WDA - Non litigious, works with land managers and is & was extremely proactive in the RMP process.

 

[Wonderland]

:snorkel:

I'm making broad sweeping statements? Please do tell...

In my area, most OHV groups participate in an occassional trail clean up and think that is enough. OHV users are going to need to step up and start helping designate routes and demonstrate their value to recreationalists and local economies if they hope to win.

Seems pretty broad to me...


We have "stepped it up". The organizations that I belong to, have designated routes, have worked closely with the BLM, Forest Service, and the local communities. There is plenty of room out there for everyone to share the land, but no it is constant battle with the environmental types and their ideals. What ever happened to the ideal of "sharing"?

Shouldn't we gather our resources together to take care of the land, instead of locking it all up? It is ridiculous how much money is being thrown around in the courtrooms, could you imagine how well the back country could be taken care of with the dollars spent fighting one another!?

Sorry, I don't trust people to put links up to the organizations that I belong to it will just give more ammo to the people that want to shut everything down.

 

[teotwaki]

I just come to the conservation threads to stir up trouble and advance my nefarious green blooded agenda:snorkel:

Now that is funny! :elkgrin: Always good to have a laugh when this stuff gets too serious. All of us need to keep that in mind.

 

[Wonderland]

That is truely pathetic IMHO.

:victory: Glad you feel that way!:snorkel:

There are a lot of environmentalist on this forum I have learned they will more likely throw you under a bus than give a helping hand.

If I give links to our hard work, it will just give them another area to shut down, which they are trying their best as I type this. Nope, no more ammo for the elitists holier-than-thou-environmentalist.

I don't understand a group of people that want to control something (The Earth) that they have absolutely no control over, the Earth is constantly resurfacing itself, a few trails are going to change that?

There a lot of hardships that need money thrown at and should be addressed in this world, and yet we have people out there trying to stop other people from recreating, to have a "bit of fun" in this short life before they kick off.

The Grand Canyon is an awfully big hole that Mother Earth cut into the ground, I don't see environmentalist all up in arms over that destruction. In the big scheme of things, do you really think OHV's are going to do the same amount of destruction as the Earth itself has caused? We merely scratch the surface.

 

[robert j. yates]

:The Grand Canyon is an awfully big hole in the ground, that Mother Earth cut into the ground, I don't see environmentalist all up in arms over that destruction.

They just can't figure ut who to sue to make some money is all.......


Taxpayers foot the bill for environmental lawsuits November 5, 2009

By Oregon Tax News,

The federal government spends about the same amount of money funding environmental lawyers as it does to protect endangered species according to an investigation conducted by a Wyoming lawyer who defends farmers and ranchers involved in environmental lawsuits.

According to the Capital Press, Karen Budd-Falen was curious how much money the federal government paid the lawyers who initiated cases against her clients and uncovered more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer money that the government paid to environmental law firms between 2003 and 2007. That represents an average of $940 million a year, compared to $922 million spent directly on the 986 endangered and threatened species, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s annual report.

According to her research, Budd-Falen found that three environmental groups—Western Watersheds Council, Forest Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity—filed more than 700 lawsuits against the U.S. government between 2000 and 2009.
“That money is not going into programs to protect people, wildlife, plants and animals,” Budd-Falen told the Capital Press, “but to fund more lawsuits.”

According to Budd-Falen, environmental groups are eligible for government funds under the Equal Access to Justice Act, which provides for the award of attorney fees to “prevailing parties” in cases against the government. The firms also are accessing government funds through the Judgment Fund, which is a line-item appropriation in the federal budget used for paying claims against the government.

“We tried to track the fees paid to environmental groups in certain federal courts. These guys are charging between $350 and $450 an hour in legal fees.” Budd-Falen told Now Public.

“If you just look at the raw number and say ‘why in the world is the United States paying a million dollars bankrolling them to sue us,’ well that’s what congress set up through EAJA. That’s the law, we’re bound by it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Haws of Boise told Now Public.

Budd-Falen found in one 15-month-long case that Earthjustice Legal Foundation and the Western Environmental Law Center filed for $479,242 in attorneys’ fees.

Brian Smith, a spokesman for Earthjustice, told the Capital Press that the foundation counts on those fees because it represents groups free of charge and that if the government had been doing its job under the Bush administration, the foundation wouldn’t be so active. He believes the current Obama administration will reduce the need for environmental lawsuits.

However, Budd-Falen doubts the steady stream of lawsuits will stop, or even slow. “Why would you stop filing litigation when you can get that kind of money? They are not filing these suits to try and protect the environment. They are filing these suits to make money.”

 

[paulj]

Who's this Karen Budd-Falen? A Wyoming lawyer specializing property rights cases and dealing with Federal agencies. She worked for the BLM in the Regan years.

http://freedom21.org/conf/speakers01.html

http://www.hcn.org/issues/304/15717

When Grijalva asks her if she has ever used NEPA to litigate on the part of ranchers or farmers, Budd-Falen says yes, over the release of Mexican wolves in the Southwest. Grijalva responds with another question: "So, the saying ‘what's good for the goose' does not apply here?"

She has also represented a Wyoming rancher who was suing BLM. The case centered on [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] public (recreational) access to the South Fork Owl Creek Road which runs across his ranch.[/FONT]

http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2006/12/BuddFalentoargueinna.htm

She also appears to have represented the private land owners in a RS2477 related suit regarding access to Surprise Canyon in the Death Valley area.
http://www.cyberwest.com/california/death-valley-national-park-offroad-ruling.shtml

 

[teotwaki]

Who's this Karen Budd-Falen? A Wyoming lawyer specializing property rights cases and dealing with Federal agencies. She worked for the BLM in the Regan years.

http://freedom21.org/conf/speakers01.html

http://www.hcn.org/issues/304/15717


She has also represented a Wyoming rancher who was suing BLM. The case centered on [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] public (recreational) access to the South Fork Owl Creek Road which runs across his ranch.[/FONT]

http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2006/12/BuddFalentoargueinna.htm

So it is okay for SUWA (Sue-Ya?) to sue the BLM at every turn but not the ranchers??? :snorkel:

LILA CANYON MINE CHALLENGED
(Source: Patty Henetz, Salt Lake Tribune, 9/12/07)

No road or surface facility construction should be allowed in Lila Canyon until UtahAmerican Energy gets its coal permits in order, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said.

The conservation organization has filed a complaint in federal court and a request for a stay with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining to hold up the coal company's plans for a mine in the Book Cliffs canyon.

Attorney Stephen Bloch said SUWA is not seeking an injunction to stop the mine from its preliminary work, but argue UtahAmerican shouldn't be allowed to proceed with any preparations because the mining plan approval was improperly prepared.

Who's this Stephen Bloch anyhow? Seems he is busy distancing SUWA from its crooked staff.

Feds bring charges against SUWA trustee's company
Swiss billionaire a huge donor to wilderness causes.
By Patty Henetz

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 11/12/2009 11:09:48 AM MST


A Swiss billionaire who in July stepped down as the chairman of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance board of directors is directly involved in a federal criminal prosecution in Pennsylvania of a company accused of illegal medical testing that led to three deaths.

Hansjörg Wyss, who joined the SUWA board in 1996 and has been a major donor to several conservation groups in the West, is the third SUWA board member in two years to run afoul of the Justice Department.

Wyss hasn't been involved in the organization's day-to-day wilderness advocacy, SUWA supporters and a persistent critic acknowledge. But the prosecution of his company could place SUWA and a new panel recently established by Gov. Gary Herbert in a political quagmire the governor wants to escape.

In 2008, Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, and 44 other Utah lawmakers wrote a letter to Wyss demanding details of any financial dealings with board treasurer Mark Ristow and board member Bert Fingerhut who in 2007 pleaded guilty to separate federal charges of making millions of illegal dollars by circumventing banking regulations. Ristow was sentenced to 20 months in prison, Fingerhut two years.

The next day, Noel during an angry Capitol news conference accused SUWA of being a "shadow government" and claimed staff attorney Steve Bloch lied in a federal courtroom.

Last week, Herbert announced Noel would be a volunteer on the new Balanced Resource Council. The governor also hired to lead the group former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, who left the SUWA board to take the paid position.

Wilson said he doesn't see why the panel should take up time on Wyss's legal troubles. "There are too many substantive issues everyone would like to see resolved," he said. "Hopefully this will not come in the way of that."

Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling said, "We don't see a connection here" with SUWA in an unrelated criminal investigation in Pennsylvania. "The principals on the board are not SUWA board members currently."

Wilson said Wyss, "a lovely man," was instrumental in negotiations that led to wilderness designation in Washington County via a bill Republican Sen. Bob Bennett cosponsored with 2nd District Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

The June 16 grand jury indictment charges a subsidiary of Wyss' company, Synthes Inc., with 52 felony counts on accusations the company engaged in illegal "off-label" use of a bone cement in spinal surgeries. Three patients died on operating tables in 2003 and 2004 during surgeries while company sales representatives looked on, the indictment says.

Wyss isn't named in the indictment, which refers to "Person No. 7" as the company CEO and major shareholder who approved going forward with the off-label use without clinical testing the Food and Drug Administration demanded. The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported a company official identified Wyss as the CEO.

On the day the indictment was announced, Synthes Inc. issued a statement saying the company "has fully cooperated with the government's investigation" and "intends to vigorously defend itself against the charges.

Wyss remains on the SUWA board but stepped down as chairman in July, said Scott Groene, SUWA's executive director.

The indictment "has nothing to do with SUWA and we don't know anything about the particulars, " Groene said.

Wyss paid for SUWA's new $1.4 million headquarters in Salt Lake City and along with other benefactors helped swell SUWA's coffers to about $5.4 million, according to 2008 tax filings posted on SUWA's Web site.

Noel, an avowed opponent of SUWA lawsuits defending wilderness-quality public lands from industrial and off-road recreational damage, acknowledged it is a staff-driven organization. "I'm not sure actually how much input the board members have," he said.

At the same time, he said, "maybe it's time for the [SUWA] board to clean up their own act before they come after the state of Utah, the counties, on things they're supposedly doing illegally."

"They don't want their people getting indicted. When you pick those people, you want personal integrity," Noel added. "I'm going to take Ted at face value that he's going to do his best to find this common ground, without going to court, without the recriminations."

Wilson said SUWA board members undergo thorough vetting. "SUWA is quite deliberate about picking its people," he said.

Last year, Wyss gave Harvard University $125 million -- Harvard's largest-ever donation --to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Wyss has his own foundation which provides scholarships for graduate students in conservation. Forbes magazine says Wyss, worth about $8 billion, led Synthes "to the fore of medical technology" as an international firm for biotech and surgical implants.

Wyss also serves on the boards of The Wilderness Society, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust.

Bill Hedden, the Trust's executive director, said Wyss hadn't attended a board meeting for about four years but has underwritten the Trust's losses on grazing allotments it bought on the historic Kane and Two Mile ranches that span 850,000 acres on the Utah-Arizona border

"I've gone hiking with Hansjorg," Hedden said. "This [federal prosecution] is not a side of him we have anything to do with. He's someone who knows the land and the issues and cares very passionately about them."

Wyss has served as an international elections observer, endowed museums in Europe, worked to save brown bears in Romania and promoted peace in Africa.

"He's a world famous philanthropist," Hedden said. "If he were actually convicted of a crime and it affected his giving, it would affect people all across the world."

SUWA seems to be made up of quite a shady group of people...


A Dispute Over Utah Land Intensifies

Published: March 15, 2008

A long-simmering dispute over the best use for millions of acres of federal land has erupted publicly with the request by some Utah legislators that a well-known local environmental organization open its books after two of its directors were sentenced to prison in separate multimillion-dollar bank fraud cases.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance seeks to have about 9.5 million acres in Utah protected. Federal authorities have said that the group, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, commonly called SUWA, was not involved in the cases, which led to the convictions of its treasurer, Mark Ristow, and another board member, Bert Fingerhut, who was once SUWA’s chairman. Each man pleaded guilty last year to using stock conversion schemes to swindle banks across the country of a total of more than $15 million.

But a letter signed by 45 Utah state legislators, most of them Republicans, asked SUWA to disclose details of its finances, meeting-minutes correspondence and other transactions involving Mr. Fingerhut and Mr. Ristow or occurring during the period of their criminal activities.

SUWA’s leadership and supporters called the letter, written by State Representative Michael E. Noel, Republican of Kanab, a politically motivated effort to discredit the group because of its role in drafting proposed legislation designating about 9.5 million acres in Utah as federally protected wilderness. The land includes much of the state’s storied red rock country.

Congress has designated slightly less than a million acres in the state as federally protected wilderness, the lowest acreage of any Western state, the group said. Once land is so designated, it is closed to new mineral leasing and to use by motorized vehicles.

“In Utah, wilderness is our scarcest resource,” said the staff lawyer for SUWA, Stephen Bloch. “To the extent that Representative Noel’s efforts succeed in diverting the argument away from how we protect these spectacular public lands, that’s unfortunate.”

The federal legislation, sponsored most recently by Representative Maurice D. Hinchey of New York and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, both Democrats, has been introduced every Congressional session since 1989. Over the years the number of acres proposed for protection has grown, angering many Utah lawmakers, who contend that restricting use of the land will harm the state’s economy.

“The members of the Legislature seem to have a lack of appreciation for the fact that these are public lands,” Mr. Bloch said. “They view them as Utah lands to be managed for and by Utahans, and we strongly disagree with that.”

Mr. Noel, who has clashed with SUWA over wilderness issues before, said that disagreements with the environmental group were an impetus for the letter.

“These guys push us to the very brink of economic disaster within our state,” Mr. Noel said, adding: “It’s absurd to take this hammer approach to try and protect the environment. It’s way overkill.”

The state lawmakers also argue that the convictions of Mr. Fingerhut and Mr. Ristow raise questions about SUWA’s credibility.

“Two of its board members were engaged in fraudulent activities that stole millions of dollars from credit unions,” said State Representative Aaron Tilton, Republican of Springville, who signed the letter, “and we want to know if any of that money made its way into SUWA.”

Mr. Tilton is vice chairman of Americans for American Energy, which advocates energy development. The Web site for a campaign the group sponsors, www.stoputahlandgrab.org, ties SUWA’s and Representative Hinchey’s support for wilderness protection to increased dependence on foreign oil and to aid to terrorists.

SUWA’s vice chairman, Ted Wilson, a former mayor of Salt Lake City, said his group’s leadership was “shocked to the core” that Mr. Ristow, a Harvard-educated, retired real estate entrepreneur, and Mr. Fingerhut, a former executive of Oppenheimer & Company, had orchestrated elaborate bank frauds for years.

Both were respected within SUWA. Mr. Fingerhut was a prolific fund-raiser and, like Mr. Ristow, had been on the board for about 20 years. Each evaded state and federal banking regulations to make illegal stock purchases from banks that were going public, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The two men generated millions in personal profits once the stock was sold, according to the commission.

“All of us were just amazed and just felt terrible,” Mr. Wilson said. “They’d been at our side for a long time. It hurt deeply.”

Last August, a federal judge in New Jersey sentenced Mr. Fingerhut to two years in prison. In January, Mr. Ristow was sentenced to 20 months.

The securities commission has never implicated SUWA in any wrongdoing, said David Rosenfeld, an associate regional director of the S.E.C.’s New York regional office.

“There are no allegations with respect to that organization in any of our filings,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

Mr. Bloch said SUWA, like other nonprofits, planned to release only information already made public, including its tax forms.