The Northern Corridor Highway — a four-lane road that would cut through federally protected Mojave desert tortoise habitat — is back on the table.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is once again considering the Utah Department of Transportation’s application to build a 4.5-mile highway through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, a fragile and fire-prone ecosystem that Congress protected for a reason. This same proposal was rejected just last year by the Biden administration due to environmental harm, yet now it's back — even after BLM’s own 2024 analysis found it would increase fire risk, destroy critical tortoise habitat, and threaten cultural and historical resources.

The new analysis names the original, damaging route as BLM’s “preferred alternative,” citing cost concerns with the less-destructive option of improving an existing parkway. But convenience and politics should never come at the cost of permanent habitat destruction.

Environmental groups, scientists, and local advocates have been fighting this proposal since it was first approved in 2021 under the Trump administration. The desert tortoise is already a threatened species. Red Cliffs is one of its last strongholds. And the agency’s plan to “offset” the damage by protecting a different area (Zone 6) is no real compromise — Zone 6 itself is now under threat of development.

St. George’s growth does not require bulldozing one of the most ecologically and culturally important landscapes in southern Utah.

We call on the Bureau of Land Management to reject the Northern Corridor Highway once and for all. We urge Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and federal leadership to defend the integrity of Red Cliffs and the Endangered Species Act. And we call on Governor Spencer Cox to support sustainable growth strategies that don’t sacrifice protected public lands.

We have until November 3 to speak out. Add your name now to demand BLM protect Red Cliffs — not pave through it.