Northern Corridor Highway Followup

February 10, 2026 — Advocates for the West filed a motion for preliminary injunction and supporting brief to prevent further ground disturbance associated with construction of the Northern Corridor Highway right-of-way.

The Bureau of Land Management authorized immediate ground-disturbing activities through interim notices to proceed following the agency’s January 21, 2026 approval for the highway. These activities will result in harm to the threatened Mojave desert tortoise as well as damage to protected resources and conservation values of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.

February 4, 2026 — Advocates for the West and a coalition of six local, Utah-based, and national conservation organizations sued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for illegally reapproving the four-lane Northern Corridor Highway through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area near St. George, Utah. Conservation groups filed the lawsuit after receiving information that the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) would be starting ground-disturbing activities for the highway’s construction based on interim authorizations from BLM and despite BLM having yet to approve a required highway development plan for public lands managed by the agency.

The proposed Northern Corridor Highway would carve a high-speed highway through designated critical habitat for the threatened Mojave desert tortoise within Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. It would damage iconic redrock landscapes, disrupt treasured outdoor recreation opportunities, and set a dangerous precedent for congressionally protected public lands across the U.S.

Today’s lawsuit, filed by Advocates for the West in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges federal agencies’ January 2026 reapproval of UDOT’s highway proposal for violating multiple federal laws, including the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act.

Abandoning their previous scientific findings, the federal agencies’ recent decision reversed a December 2024 rejection of the same proposal by the BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service and marks the eighth time the controversial highway has been considered. The project has been stopped on seven previous attempts over concerns related to wildlife, public safety, legal compliance, and community opposition.

In a decades-long fight, local residents, conservation organizations, and outdoor recreationists have strongly opposed the Northern Corridor Highway. Despite the immense local opposition, the BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service approved a right-of-way for the Northern Corridor Highway in the final days of the first Trump administration. Conservation groups sued, arguing that the approval violated multiple federal laws.

The case resulted in a settlement agreement in 2023, which the BLM’s recent reapproval violates, and a U.S. District Court decision sending back the project’s 2021 right-of-way approval for reconsideration. Agencies acknowledged that the approval did not comply with the National Historic Preservation Act and required additional environmental analysis in light of recent wildfires that further degraded Mojave desert tortoise habitat and native vegetation. After updating its environmental analysis, the BLM again rejected the project in late 2024.

The agency’s 2024 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement found the project would increase wildfire probability and frequency, permanently eliminate designated critical tortoise habitat, spread noxious weeds and invasive plants, and harm more cultural and historical resources than any alternative considered.

In October 2025, the BLM said it would reconsider the application after UDOT argued that the federally endorsed alternative was economically infeasible, despite documented environmental and community costs associated with the Northern Corridor.