BLM Holds Public Meetings on Grand Staircase-Escalante Plan

In August, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced the release of the draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the restored Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. As part of the public engagement process, the agency is taking public comments and hosting both virtual and in-person meetings about the plan. Below are the details on upcoming in-person meetings planned for Utah (open house format) as well as a virtual meeting open to interested members of the public nationwide. More information can be found on the BLM’s ePlanning page here.

• Wednesday, Oct. 4th, from 6-8 pm, Kanab Center, Ballroom A, 20 N 100 E, Kanab, UT
• Tuesday, Oct. 17th, from 6-8 pm, Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek, 75 S West Temple St., Salt Lake City, UT
• Wednesday, Oct. 18th, from 6-8 pm, Panguitch Elementary School Gymnasium, 110 S 100 W, Panguitch, UT
• Wednesday, Oct. 25th, from 2-4 pm (MT). This meeting will be held via Zoom. Click here to register.

The development of a new management plan is a critical opportunity to ensure the monument is managed for years to come to protect its unique and extraordinary values. You can learn more about the monument on our website or by listening to Episode 37 of our Wild Utah podcast.

Unfortunately, the Blueprint is not the “major shift” that the agency claims will enable it to move from reactive recreation management to a proactive approach that better protects natural and cultural resources. Instead, it offers little change from previous strategic plans that have led to the current, untenable situation. While we support the Blueprint’s focus on growing and diversifying funding, improving equitable access, and ensuring that underserved communities and Tribal voices are represented, we have grave concerns that this well-intended document will do little to halt the degradation of wild lands, wildlife, and cultural landscapes.

The BLM is accepting public comments on the Blueprint through Saturday, September 30th. Please tell the agency that its recreation management strategy must proactively protect intact wild lands, wildlife, and other natural and cultural resources.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration significantly weakened NEPA by prioritizing pipelines, fossil fuel production, and road building over environmental and public health interests. The Biden administration is now working to undo the damage.

Enefit’s original plans called for building the nation’s first commercial-scale oil shale mine and processing plant on private and nearby federal land, strip mining hundreds of millions of tons of oil shale rock and churning out more than 18 million barrels of synthetic crude oil every year for more than 30 years, all with well-to-wheel carbon emissions up to 75 percent higher than conventional oil. In the process, Enefit would consume more than 100 billion gallons of water over the next three decades from the upper Colorado River Basin—about as much as is consumed by all existing municipal and industrial users in the Uinta Basin combined. Additionally, massive amounts of pollutants would flow into nearby rivers and degrade the basin’s already unhealthy air.

“For decades, mining oil shale in Utah has been the quintessential bad idea that just wouldn’t go away: an activity that never penciled out and which in every iteration would have hugely damaging environmental consequences for public lands,” said SUWA Legal Director Steve Bloch. “We’re glad to be finally closing the book on this doomsday proposal.”