Last week we asked you to take action to protect the Labyrinth Canyon area from a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to authorize the Keg Knoll backcountry airstrip for private aircraft takeoffs and landings. Now, the BLM’s Canyon Country District is proposing to designate ten additional backcountry airstrips in the Moab and Monticello areas and authorize periodic machine maintenance in remote locations. Once again, we need your help to keep these quiet, wild places free of aircraft noise and mechanical intrusions.
These airstrips, most of which show no signs of recent use, are scattered across some of the most remote and ecologically sensitive landscapes in southern Utah—including the Gemini Bridges/Labyrinth Canyon area and the remote backcountry immediately adjacent to Bears Ears National Monument.
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None of these airstrips have ever been officially designated, and despite past use, many of these locations are essentially reclaimed and no longer functional for takeoff or landing. Reopening them would require removal of mature native plants like blackbrush, rabbitbrush, and junipers, fragmenting habitat and degrading wilderness characteristics that took years to recover. Several locations sit within BLM-identified wilderness-quality lands or directly adjacent to Bears Ears National Monument, where aircraft noise and visual intrusions would diminish the solitude, natural soundscapes, and cultural landscapes these areas were meant to protect.
The Spring Canyon and Big Flat airstrips lie within bighorn habitat along the Green River corridor and near Canyonlands National Park—the same landscape where the BLM already restricts other recreation activities to protect these important species during lambing season. Similarly, raptors nesting near Big Flat, Nokai Dome, and other sites are highly sensitive to aviation noise, which discourages use of otherwise suitable nesting habitat.
Click here to urge the BLM to reject designation of the most sensitive airstrip locations.
These remote canyon country landscapes deserve protection, not rubber-stamping of aircraft use that degrades recovering ecosystems and introduces chronic noise into some of Utah’s last remaining quiet, wild places. The BLM has decided not to open a formal public comment period on this action, so please submit your comments as soon as possible to ensure they’re taken into account.
Thank you for your support!
P.S. If you haven’t taken action yet on the Keg Knoll backcountry airstrip, please click here to submit a separate comment to the BLM’s Price field office.
