On December 24, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reversed the Bush-era “No More Wilderness” policy, creating a new “Wild Lands” policy that could potentially protect 6 million acres of wilderness in Utah (see our Associate Director’s note).

Please thank Secretary Salazar for the new policy, but let him know that the BLM must uphold the policy’s full potential to protect the last remaining wild country in Utah.

National BLM Director Bob Abbey will be visiting Salt Lake City this Friday, and we will hand deliver everyone’s notes at that event.  Please show your support for protecting Utah wilderness by thanking Secretary Salazar today!

Thank you!

Happy New Year from all of us at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.  Thank you for your strong support in 2010.  Now let’s get to work in 2011!

2010 ended on a bright note with Secretary Salazar’s new wilderness guidance that could give needed protection to 6 million acres of Utah’s redrock wilderness.  Thanks to all of you, this action reverses the Bush administration’s “No More Wilderness” policy, which left these lands vulnerable to off-road vehicle damage and inappropriate energy development.

Only with your activism and support can we seize this opportunity to secure these lands the protection they deserve.  Wilderness opponents are already promising to block this policy: the oil and gas industry and off-road vehicle advocates are fuming, and politicians like Utah Senator Orrin Hatch are declaring they’ll do everything possible to stop us.

To blunt this opposition, newly minted House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Ed Markey (D-MA) is already circulating a letter to members of Congress asking them to thank Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for the new policy.  Please take a moment now to ask your representative to sign Mr. Markey’s letter!

For Utahns:  Please take a moment now to ask let your Utah Congressional representatives know that you support Secretary Salazar’s action.

This type of action will encourage the Obama administration to continue issuing conservation-oriented policies for public lands by demonstrating broad popular support.

Thank you!

P.S. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of supporters like you, we met our year-end goal and won a matching gift of $100,000! Your financial contributions are absolutely essential to the important work of protecting America’s redrock for current and future generations.  Sec. Salazar’s new wilderness guidance demonstrates that your support is yielding results!

With your dogged determination and willingness to speak out for Utah wilderness, it was inevitable.  And yesterday, it finally happened . . . Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar released new wilderness guidance that has the potential to give needed protection to 6 million of acres of wilderness-quality lands in Utah.

Upper Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness is one area that needs protection. Photo copyright Ray Bloxham/SUWA.

The new policy also reverses the much-maligned and illegal 2003 back-door agreement between former Utah governor Michael Leavitt and former Interior boss Gale Norton by which Norton renounced the BLM’s authority to manage public lands to protect their wilderness character.

There is much to like about Interior’s policy.  It gives wilderness a rightful place as an equal among the range of other resources BLM must manage and protect, and it’s a critical first step towards ensuring the permanent protection of the last remaining wild lands in the West.

But of course, the path to real wilderness protection is never that simple.  The new policy also has an escape hatch that allows the BLM to decide not to protect deserving lands if it decides that development is “appropriate.” That’s a loophole big enough to drive a drilling rig through, and the BLM will have to close that gap if this policy is to fix the wilderness mess that the BLM’s historically unbalanced policies have left us.  And the BLM would not designate new “wilderness study areas” under the policy – another shortcoming.

There are other questions: the new policy will be applied in future land use planning and in project-level decision making, but how will wilderness character lands that were ignored in the BLM’s 2008 land use plans be protected?  That includes over 2 million acres of spectacular land in the heart of the red rock.

The “No More Wilderness” debacle of 2003 was born in Utah, and leadership at Interior and the BLM must ensure that the injustices done here are remedied.  The new policy has the potential to do that, but the Utah BLM is famous for digging up reasons not to protect wilderness.

There’s more work to be done.  Please thank Secretary Salazar for the new policy, but let him know that the BLM must live up to the policy’s full potential to protect the last remaining wild country in Utah.

P.S. If lands that the BLM itself identified as eligible for wilderness protection in the 2008 land use plans were protected, 86% of the proposed oil and gas wells could still be drilled.



Proposed Desolation Canyon wilderness, photo by Ray Bloxham

In what can only be called “shockingly disappointing,” the Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is promoting a private company’s plan to develop the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness and destroy thousands of acres.  We would have expected as much during the last administration, and indeed that’s when this company – Gasco – initially proposed its full field development plans.  After an initial flurry in 2006, the project seemed to dry up and go away.  Imagine our surprise this past October when the Utah BLM unveiled a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) with an “agency preferred alternative” identical to the company’s proposed action – one that would authorize nearly 1,500 new natural gas wells including 222 wells in the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness.

The Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness is the largest roadless complex in the lower 48 states.  Centered around the Desolation Canyon stretch of the Green River, the area’s spectacular solitude and endless vistas are simply awe inspiring.  Sadly, this remarkable place is once again in the crosshairs for destruction. Please help protect this amazing landscape by sending a letter to the BLM today, asking them to support an alternative that would fully protect this special place from development.

While the Gasco EIS analyzes two alternatives to the company’s proposed action — both of which would mean no drilling in the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness along with greater protections for the Green River, big game, and nearby Nine Mile Canyon — the BLM still found a way to support the company’s plans to drill in all these sensitive places.

You may have also heard in the news that last year eastern Utah experienced wintertime ozone levels as bad as any place in the country.  According to Gasco’s own figures, this project will make things worse by adding to those unsafe pollution levels.  Not a good idea.

Please let the Utah BLM know that you want to see protection of the Desolation Canyon Wilderness.