WASHINGTON CITY, Utah — Washington City resident Ken Bouvier hikes up through the Ice House Trail and shares how it's currently a very calm place.
"Now we're going to be looking down, and there's gonna be cars racing across the highway," Bouvier said Thursday, one day after the Northern Corridor Highway project was given the green light.
We've heard a lot from officials about the highway project, but what about those who live in the community? Bouvier lives in the Green Springs area, with his neighborhood sitting near where the proposed east entry and exit for the highway.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management announced it had approved the plan to build the four-lane highway, reversing a decision made in 2024.
"It's very close," said Bouvier. "It's going to affect us quite a bit."
Using his skills as an aircraft engineer and drone pilot teacher, Bouvier showed what he claims is proof that the new highway won’t do much more for traffic than Red Hills Parkway does now. His bigger concern comes from the potential of increased wildfire danger from the new highway, which Bouvier said the BLM cited when it rejected the project during the Biden Administration.
"I received a notice of non-renewal from my homeowner's insurance for the reason of high exposure to wildfires," he said. "And I just got an email last night from another neighbor who is furious about this, and they got the same notice of non-renewal."
"I feel like they did listen initially, and now they're not listening anymore."
The new highway will link Ivins and northern St. George with Washington City, and unlike Bouvier, other locals say the road is needed.
"Just being a realtor, my point is that I drive everywhere in this whole county. Every week and … I just sometimes end up staying home because of the traffic issues. So we have to do something with traffic," said Cara Street.
Before moving to southern Utah, Street lived in Heber City, where she said they had the same issue of needing another traffic artery. She claimed nothing was done until it was too late, and the new highway project doesn’t just excite her because she sells homes.
"I hope the city planners or whoever's doing this, you know, collaborate and studied it enough to be where we're not going to build homes along there," Street said.
Part of the deal announced Wednesday by the BLM and Washington County is what they said is a reassurance that another area will remain protected. Areas like the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve that the Northern Corridor would run through. It is home to the endangered desert tortoise, and is also the only place on earth to find the bearclaw poppy.
The executive director of Conserve Southwest Utah, which previously sued to keep the road from being built, told me they’re weighing new legal action to keep the highway from happening.
"They're kind of doing... divide and conquer," said Tyler Webb, President of the Southern Utah Climbers Alliance. "Now there's conservation groups that are fighting for conserving one area, but at the same time, that could have detrimental effects on conserving another area.
"It's just an unfortunate decision that they've kind of made us have to choose between damaging one area and completely destroying and bulldozing another area."
