A lawsuit that a dozen Moab businesses and a public-lands advocacy group filed in September against Moab and Grand County has not yet gone to court, but residents and some elected officials are already voicing their verdict.
Many locals and elected officials are incensed about the lawsuit that Blue Ribbon Coalition and Moab ATV businesses filed against the city and Grand County on Sept. 26 for ordinances both entities enacted to rein in noisy off-road vehicles.
“There’s been a lot of chatter on local email list serves and Facebook about this,” said Jon Kovach, a retired radio news director. “They’re suing the whole town … and there’s a lot of hard feelings about the fact that they filed it.”
Since the passage of a 2015 state law, sponsored by then-Rep. Mike Noel, which bars local governments from restricting off-highway vehicles on city or county streets, registrations for off-highway vehicles in Utah have skyrocketed by more than 320%.
That led Moab and Grand County to impose a series of noise and other restrictions to curb ATVs. But Blue Ribbon Coalition, an Idaho nonprofit that champions motorized access to public lands, and ATV businesses in the tourist town of 5,400 residents are raising a ruckus about the restrictions.
In their lawsuit filed in 7th District Court, the plaintiffs accuse county and city officials of violating their constitutional rights and violating state code in an illegal and “malicious” attempt to target and discourage ATV use, and are claiming $1 million in damages.
Especially egregious to ATV businesses is the joint moratorium the city and county issued in October 2020 that banned the issue of licenses for new ATV rental and tour businesses. The moratorium also prohibited the issuance of new special events permits for the gathering of ATV users and vendors, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argue the suspension specifically targets ATV users and violates the 2015 state law.
Also at issue are noise restrictions both government entities implemented in 2021 that limit noise, as measured using a standard stationary test performed at 20 inches from the tailpipe to a maximum 92 dBA between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. and even lower sound levels at other hours of the day.
Since most stock ATVs are louder than 92 dBA, the plaintiffs argue, the noise restrictions essentially would make it illegal to operate most ATVs in Grand County. They argue the noise ordinances also make it illegal to “drive an ATV if it will annoy someone.”
Finally, they are upset that Grand County commissioners tweaked the county’s Title 5 code last year to require businesses to get a certificate of compliance from the county each year showing each ATV complies with the noise standard in order to renew their licenses. The code also limits businesses’ ATV fleets to 18 street-legal vehicles and bars businesses from increasing the ATV numbers they own until every vehicle meets noise standards.
The code changes also bar ATV rental businesses from increasing their vehicle numbers, limit ATV caravans in guided tours to six vehicles and in unguided caravans to four vehicles. It further requires business owners to educate users about the standards and holds them liable if their customers don’t comply. And it caps the number of business licenses the county can issue to ATV rental businesses to three and limits the number of additional licenses that can be issued to ATV outfitters and guide-service businesses to four.
By imposing such rules, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and business owners contend the city and the county not only violated the 2015 state law but also HB146, the law state legislators passed last March that prohibited cities from imposing additional standards or noise requirements upon owners of street-legal ATVs beyond that required by the state.
Ben Burr, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, said the city and county not only broke the law but failed to come up with a process for ATV owners to get their vehicles tested for compliance, which caused regulatory uncertainty and harmed Moab businesses.
“Every business was affected differently,” Burr said, “But they can all point to damages and costs … they had to incur because of this really aggressive regulatory push.”
In an interview with KUTV-Channel 2, Ultimate UTV Adventures owner Mark Moore said the ordinances forced him to change the business model of his Moab store.
“I’ve lost over half my income,” Moore told KUTV. “We stopped doing half of what we do because we didn’t want to lose our business due to them ticketing somebody that’s not in our control. Even though they leased the vehicle from us or rented it from us, you can’t control that.”
Moab ATV business owners have since refused to comment on the suit, referring all questions to Blue Ribbon, which is involved in several public lands disputes across the country, or to their attorney Suzette Rasmussen. But in the lawsuit, they state the onerous regulations cause them to cancel existing bookings, turn down new ones, and to either not update their ATV fleet or actively reduce it.
As for the complaints about ATV noise, Burr argues they are overblown.
“It’s an issue that has been exaggerated because Moab and Grand County are run by elected officials who are kind of beholden to the wilderness advocates,” he said. “They really want to turn the whole area of Moab into a wilderness enclave. … Hopefully, the court case is a signal that the businesses aren’t going to be pushed around.”
County officials and residents counter that Burr and the business owners are as deaf to the noise ATVs make in residential neighborhoods as they are to the volume of complaints their activities are causing. Grand County Attorney Christina Sloan said the county has received more complaints from residents about the noise than on any other issue, with some claiming the racket from recreational vehicles is causing “stress-related illnesses, high blood pressure, hearing loss, sleep disruption, and lost productivity,” among other things.
Sloan calls Blue Ribbon’s claims “ridiculous” and says businesses’ economic interests are important but don’t supersede every other concern.
“Noise pollution is a health and safety issue, and regulating noise pollution is a legitimate governmental interest,” she said. “Grand County has no duty to protect or prioritize the plaintiffs’ economic interests when it’s making the community sick and harming our tourism economy.”
In 2021, county officials received a petition signed by more than 3,000 people asking them to do something to mitigate the noise. Moreover, some residents say noisy fleets of ATVs running roughshod through neighborhoods at all hours are driving tourists away.
“All my friends who live in Colorado won’t come here anymore,” Kovach said. “And you hear that from so many [people] who say we used to come to Moab but not anymore because [the city] is set up for noisemakers. We’ve now got motorized paragliders, jet boats in the river and sightseeing helicopters flying overhead. It’s getting pretty absurd.”
Razors, as well as ATVs, are an issue for Moab resident and retired wildlife biologist Dan Kent, especially at the intersection near his home.
“They are speeding, flying big flags, and sometimes announcing their likes and dislikes in vulgar terms,” he said. “And they are super loud. I’ve had people doing doughnuts right in the middle of the intersection here.”
The once-quiet town has not only become a sonic nightmare for humans, but Kent says the noise is also wreaking havoc on wildlife. He said some golden eagles have abandoned their nest and deer and other wildlife have been negatively impacted.
Moab spokesperson Lisa Church said city officials are still reviewing the suit and have no comment.
County officials responded in October, asking the court to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims. Sloan said the county’s data showed most ATVs could meet the 92 dBA standard. Moreover, she said the county set up a reasonable testing schedule that accommodated all the business owners’ schedules. She also noted county commissioners rescinded the ATV moratorium on Oct. 4 and updated the county’s Title 5 code May 3 to bring it in compliance with HB146. She said commissioners are looking at lifting the business caps on licenses by year’s end. The ATV moratorium is still in effect in Moab.
For her part, Grand County Commissioner Mary McGann is hoping for a favorable outcome in court.
“It’s in the hands of the lawyers now,” she said. “We get to waste taxpayers’ money on fighting a lawsuit that could be used for some storm drainage, which we desperately need, or for creating better bike paths. There are so many needs in the county that this money could be used for that is now going to be wasted.”
