Public Lands

Outstanding Professional Award to BLM manager

Gary Torres recently received the 2021 Outstanding Public Lands Professional Award from The Public Lands Foundation. Torres has served in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for more than 30 years. He currently serves as the Manager of the Canyon Country District of the BLM, which covers millions...

Comment period extended for Lisbon Valley Mine request to use well water to extend mining

A Utah environmental regulatory agency is preparing a request to the federal government to allow a mine to inject diluted sulfuric acid solutions into a San Juan County aquifer. If approved, the Utah Division of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) aquifer exemption request to the federal Environmental...

Initial restoration work complete for BLM portion of Pack Creek Fire

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) fire personnel have completed the initial restoration work for the Pack Creek Fire on all 131 acres of BLM-managed lands impacted by the fire. The fire restoration project incorporated the application of native seeds to help stabilize soil and protect the area from...

Storm debris, water level impact access to Rainbow Bridge Ntl Mon

Visitors to Rainbow Bridge National Monument are advised that access from Lake Powell will become significantly more difficult until further notice, due to lowering lake levels and mud and debris from rain events. Effective immediately, there will no longer be dock access to the shoreline. The...

Pottery returns to Edge of the Cedars pueblo

The Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum’s “New to the Edge” exhibit features several new pottery vessels, including two that apparently hail from the Edge of the Cedars Pueblo itself. A recent donor, a local youth in the early 1960s, returned two vessels that were recovered from the site years...

CIB approves $1.258M funding package for water rights purchase

The Utah Permanent Community Impact Board (CIB) approved a $1 million grant and a $258,000 low-interest loan for the City of Monticello at the October 7 CIB meeting. The funds will be used to purchase water rights in the Spring Creek drainage for up to 1,570.4 acre-feet of water. The current...

Bears Ears National Monument resized to 1.36 million acres, nearly 27 percent of county

President Joseph Biden signed an executive order restoring the Bears Ears National Monument to its original designated size on Friday, October 8. President Biden’s designation places the monument at 1.36 million acres, after the addition of 11,200 acres that President Trump added to the monument...

view near the Bears Ears buttes, photo by: Spencer Gosney

President Biden to designate 1.36 million acres for Bears Ears National Monument

President Joseph Biden will sign an executive order restoring the Bears Ears National Monument to its original designated size on Friday, October 8. President Biden’s designation places the monument at 1.36 million acres, after the addition of 11,200 acres that President Trump added to the...

Reports that Sec. Haaland’s suggestion is to restore Bears Ears

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is recommending that President Joe Biden restore Bears Ears National Monument to its original size, according to a June 14 report in the Washington Post. The original boundaries of the monument totaled 1.35 million acres – all in San Juan County – when it was...

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland visits area to investigate national monument boundaries

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland recently completed a three-day visit to the area to investigate the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments. The first Native American Secretary of the Interior arrived in Bluff on Wednesday, April 7, where she met with tribal...