On Tuesday, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed a petition for a stay and administrative challenge to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) approval of two Gasco Production Company-proposed oil wells in the Riverbend area of Utah’s Uinta Basin.

Last week, over 30 national outdoor brands, led by Black Diamond CEO Peter Metcalf, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in defense of the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness.

Yesterday US District Court judge Walker D. Miller sided with conservation groups and ordered the US Interior Department to reconsider a decision denying Endangered Species Act protection to the Graham’s penstomen, a wildflower found only in parts of Utah and Colorado.