News Archives

  • Tell the BLM to Drop Its Massive Lease Sale Near Utah’s National Parks

    June 29th, 2020

    As you may have heard by now, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to open up more than 114,000 acres of wild lands in Utah—including more than 86,000 acres in southeastern Utah—to oil and gas drilling as part of its upcoming September lease sale.

    If this massive lease sale goes through, oil and gas wells could appear at the doorstep of Canyonlands, Arches, and Capitol Reef National Parks—as well as near Bears Ears National Monument, Labyrinth Canyon, Dead Horse Point State Park, the Green River, and in lands proposed for wilderness designation in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.

    Tell the BLM: No oil and gas leasing near Utah’s National Parks!


    The BLM is accepting comments on the lease sale through next Thursday, July 9th. Trump’s BLM needs to hear from you. Tell them:

    • The BLM must put a halt to all new leasing of public lands if there is any chance of avoiding the most severe impacts of a changing climate. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands including oil and gas account for nearly 24 percent of the nation’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.
    • Even without the climate crisis, this lease sale would be unacceptable. The BLM is proposing to blanket southern Utah’s redrock country with oil and gas leases, opening the door to development of some of the nation’s most remarkable public lands, including lands surrounding three of Utah’s “Mighty Five” National Parks.
    • The BLM is promoting wide-scale lease speculation. The world is currently awash in unneeded oil, as evidenced by the BLM recently giving royalty relief to oil and gas operators in this same area because those operators cannot economically develop the leases they already have.

    Click here to tell the BLM what you think about their latest giveaway to the oil and gas industry.

    Thanks to SUWA supporters like you, thousands of messages have already been sent to Utah Governor Gary Herbert, demonstrating the widespread opposition to the Trump administration’s attempt to flood southern Utah with new oil and gas wells.

    The BLM needs to get that message as well. Please take a moment to submit your comments today.

    Thank you for taking action.

  • Wild Utah Podcast, Episode 14: Pride Outside

    June 26th, 2020

    June is Pride month! In this episode, we explore how mother nature can cultivate confidence, healing, and embodiment for LGBTQ+ people. SUWA Community Organizer Olivia Juarez and guests Eva Lopez of Orgullo Utah and Salvador Oregon-Torres, a Utah-based LGBTQ+ and undocumented community advocate, delve into queerness in the wild.

    Wild Utah is made possible by the contributing members of SUWA. Our theme music, “What’s Worth?” was written and performed in Moab by Haley Noel Austin. 

    Listen on your favorite app!

    wildutah.info/Stitcher
    wildutah.info/Apple
    wildutah.info/Spotify

  • Take Action to Keep Radioactive Waste Away from Bears Ears

    June 22nd, 2020

    At the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument, the White Mesa Uranium Mill in southern Utah wants to acquire tons of new radioactive waste shipped all the way from Estonia.

    The mill’s owner, Energy Fuels Resources, lobbied the Trump administration to reduce Bears Ears National Monument in 2017. If the license application is approved by the Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control, the White Mesa Uranium Mill would begin accepting 660 tons of radioactive waste to process in the first year alone.

    Click here to ask the state of Utah to reject the proposal to import radioactive waste to southern Utah.

    Bringing Estonia’s radioactive waste, which contains about 0.05% uranium ore, to the White Mesa Uranium Mill for processing would add millions of tons of toxic waste to the pits that lie just a few miles from the Ute Mountain Ute’s White Mesa community.

    White Mesa Uranium Mill, copyright EcoFlight

    The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has voiced concerns about Energy Fuels Resources’ proposal and the threat of contamination to the Tribe’s drinking water. Scott Clow, the Environmental Programs Director for the Tribe, lamented to the Salt Lake Tribune how the White Mesa Uranium Mill is becoming “the world’s radioactive waste dump.” He added, “The Tribe does not want these materials to continue to be delivered to their neighborhood, their traditional lands, and stored there forever.”

    Energy Fuels Resources already has a questionable track record when it comes to handling toxic and radioactive materials. Within the last five years, trucks driving through southern Utah on their way to White Mesa have spilled radioactive waste twice, and the mill itself releases toxic and radioactive air pollutants, which residents of White Mesa have reported smelling.

    The public comment period on Energy Fuels Resources’ proposal is open through July 10, 2020.

    Click here to submit your comments to Utah regulators today.

    Thank you for taking action.

  • Tell Utah Governor Herbert: Say No to Drilling Near Utah’s National Parks

    June 16th, 2020

    As expected, the Trump administration has gone all-in on its plans to flood southern Utah’s redrock country with oil and gas development.

    If Trump’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM)  gets its way during its September 2020 oil and gas lease sale, new oil and gas wells could appear at the doorstep of Canyonlands, Arches, and Capitol Reef National Parks—as well as near Bears Ears National Monument, Labyrinth Canyon, Dead Horse Point State Park, the Green River, and in lands proposed for wilderness designation in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.

    The September lease sale threatens to blanket southern Utah’s landscape of red rock canyons and natural arches with drill rigs, pipelines, and truck traffic—replacing the clean air, expansive vistas, quiet stillness, and sense of wildness with the sights and sounds of industrial development, all while expanding fossil fuel emissions that are driving the climate crisis. 

    And the size of this new lease sale is massive. At more than 114,050 acres across 77 separate parcels of public land, this is the largest lease sale seen in the area since the oil industry giveaways at the end of the George W. Bush administration with its  December 2008 lease sale—which coincidentally also included 77 parcels. 

    The nature and scale of that Bush-era lease sale was so controversial that it prompted a lawsuit from conservation groups including SUWA that blocked the sale and led to long overdue and common sense reforms to the oil and gas leasing process. 

    The Trump administration threw out those reforms shortly after taking office, setting the stage for a repeat of the disastrous December 2008 lease sale.

    Previously, Utah Governor Gary Herbert has shown a willingness to speak out against oil and gas leases that lie too close to Utah’s national parks, as many of these leases do. That’s why we’re asking you to take a few minutes today to call Governor Herbert and ask him to demand that the Trump administration abandon this rapacious plan for southern Utah.

    Call Governor Herbert’s office today at 801-538-1000 and ask him to protect Utah’s national parks, or click here to be connected to his office.  You may also click here to send him an email.

    When you call, tell him:

    • To intervene and ask the BLM to cancel its inappropriate September lease sale for southern Utah, which threatens Utah’s magnificent parks and wild places.
    • We should not sacrifice our national parks and wildlands for the sake of oil and gas development, especially when the world is awash in oil.
    • His leadership in speaking out against inappropriate leasing around Dinosaur National Monument, Zion National Park, and Sand Flats Recreation Area was greatly appreciated.

    In the coming weeks, we’ll also ask you to submit comments on the lease sale directly to the BLM. 

    But first, we need you to contact Governor Herbert—and to help get the word out by sharing this post on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

    And click here to take additional action by send sending a Letter to the Editor.

    Thank you for taking action.