Actress/director Daryl Hannah and rock legend Neil Young were in Moab last Friday and showed their support for protecting Greater Canyonlands!

Neil later wrote (https://www.facebook.com/lincvolt):

“Imagine the beautiful majestic canyons and valleys of Canyonlands National Park, the same legendary landscape immortalized around the world in car commercials and posters of American beauty, and you know where we are now. Imagine a nightmare where these lands are raped by Big Oil and the American Government, working hand in hand to create another tar sands disaster for Planet Earth in our sacred Canyonlands National Park. The plans are made and the forces are moving.
Ignoring the Climate Chaos that has become the new normal, ignoring the inefficiency of tar sands oil production, ignoring the species becoming extinct as you read this, ignoring a chance for a clean tomorrow, these forces of reckless greed are moving forward and if you don’t do something about it and get active, raise awareness, make your own statements, then it will be partly your responsibility. The destruction will rest on your shoulders. Get active. Make change now. Fight for Freedom to choose the fuel you use. End fossil fuel abuse. End carbon waste. Begin now.”

Join them by taking a Protect Greater Canyonlands photo! Click here for more info: http://bit.ly/GCCampaign

Here’s what is happening this month with the redrock:

1. New signature campaign against Governor Herbert’s public land grab.
2. Greater Canyonlands becomes a hot topic in the Utah State Legislature.
3. Help protect the President’s ability to designate national monuments.
4. SUWA & our partners file a lawsuit to protect Desolation Canyon.
5. Hear our thoughts on Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell.

“For Kids and Lands” launches signature campaign against Gov. Herbert’s public land grab

An exciting new group in Utah is speaking out against Utah Governor Herbert’s public land grab, and they are asking Utah citizens to help them.

“For Kids and Lands” is an informal group of educators, community leaders, and other citizens who care about Utah’s kids and landscapes.  In their words, “We came together because we are concerned that efforts by the state of Utah to assert ownership over publicly-owned federal lands in Utah would not benefit – in fact would harm – both of these precious resources.”

The group has drafted a position statement – endorsed by over 50 community leaders and educators – opposing the state of Utah’s efforts to claim ownership over federal public lands and dirt routes crossing federal lands.  Instead, they call for another path: “realistic solutions for education funding and stewardship of public lands.”

How you can help:  Go to www.forkidsandlands.org and add your name.  Please help spread the word on Facebook and encourage your
friends to sign too!

This action is important because Utah legislators are poised to pass a new bill that would further advance Gov. Herbert’s public land grab agenda.  The bill instructs the state’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office to “identify a process for the state to transfer and receive title to public lands.”

Greater Canyonlands discussion heats up in the Utah State Legislature

Terry Tempest Williams, Utah Senator James Dabakis and Mark Ritchie of Black Diamond Equipment testifying at the Greater Canyonlands hearing

On February 5, Utah State Senator Jim Dabakis and State Representative Patrice Arent introduced a resolution in the Utah legislature in support of Congressional or Executive action to protect Greater Canyonlands—a watershed moment in the effort to preserve this landscape for future generations.

Two days later, and with less than 24 hours notice, Utah wilderness supporters packed a hearing room at the Utah State Capitol to support Sen. Dabakis’ resolution.  The Utah Senate Natural

Resources committee listened to testimony from Mark Ritchie, COO of Black Diamond Equipment, and Terry Tempest Williams, among others. Mark Ritchie spoke of Greater Canyonlands’ importance as a resource that helps to support Utah’s $5 billion a year outdoor recreation industry. author Terry Tempest Williams spoke of Greater Canyonlands as a “a spiritual reservoir” and “a geologic truth that belongs to all of us.”  Only one person was present to speak against the resolution.

The committee members were very polite and talked about the need to protect Greater Canyonlands (with some disagreement about what
“protection” means).  Then they voted to take up the resolution during Interim Committee – which is a victory (they could have just killed it).  The bottom line is that thanks to you, and the thousands of supporters of protection for America’s redrock wilderness across the country, we are moving forward.

If you haven’t already, please become a citizen co-signer of the resolution by clicking here.  You don’t have to be a Utah citizen to participate!

For more ways you can help protect the Greater Canyonlands region, visit greatercanyonlands.org and “like” the Protect Greater Canyonlands page on Facebook.



The Antiquities Act is under attack!

Thanks to the Antiquities Act, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was protected in 1996.  Photo copyright James Kay.

It’s been an exciting few weeks with support building to protect the Greater Canyonlands every day!  But if we let our guard down we could lose the best tool to protect the Greater Canyonlands – the Antiquities Act.  This law, passed in 1906 and championed by Teddy Roosevelt, gives the President the authority to protect threatened public land as a national monument.  The Antiquities Act has been used dozens of times by presidents of both parties, and was the first step in protecting Arches, Zion, Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon.

In just the first month of Congress, four different bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate that would gut the Antiquities Act – leaving the American people with little hope of protecting treasured places with a Congress that is stubbornly stalling wilderness legislation

Help protect the Antiquities Act – Contact your members of Congress today!



Still fighting for the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness


At the end of January, SUWA and a coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Salt Lake City challenging the Interior Department’s decision to allow nearly 1,300 new oil and gas wells in Utah’s Desolation Canyon region.

Approved last year, the “Gasco project” was heavily criticized in editorials across the country but calls for a compromise decision were rejected by Secretary Salazar.  The drilling project was also roundly decried by congressional leaders, representatives from the outdoor industry, and environmental leaders who called on the Interior Department to protect Desolation Canyon while allowing a reasonable level of development in less sensitive areas.

Read more by clicking here.



Our take on Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell


SUWA Legislative Director Richard Peterson-Cremer on Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell:

“We are gladdened to see this impressive nominee to be the next Secretary of the Interior. Sally Jewell has a tremendous record supporting important conservation measures while also understanding the numerous uses of our public lands.  Importantly for Utah, she is well-versed in the importance of the outdoor recreation economy and the crucial role that protected public lands play in its success. We look forward to working with Ms. Jewell in the coming years to further protect Utah’s redrock.”



Sign the petition to protect Greater Canyonlands

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL * THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY * SIERRA CLUB
SOUTHERN UTAH WILDERNESS ALLIANCE *

For Immediate Release – January 22, 2013
Contacts:
Stephen Bloch, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 801.428.3981
Nada Culver, The Wilderness Society, 303.807.6918 (cell)
Sharon Buccino, Natural Resources Defense Council, 202.289.2397

SALT LAKE CITY (January 22, 2013) — Last Friday, January 18, a coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Salt Lake City challenging the Interior Department’s decision to allow nearly 1,300 new oil and gas wells in Utah’s Desolation Canyon region.

Approved last year, the “Gasco project” was heavily criticized in editorials across the country and whose calls for a compromise decision were rejected by Secretary Salazar.  The drilling project was also roundly decried by congressional leaders, representatives from the outdoor industry, and environmental leaders who called on the Interior Department to protect Desolation Canyon while allowing a reasonable level of development in less sensitive areas.

“Regrettably, Secretary Salazar made the wrong decision to approve the Gasco project which will result in significant, long lasting damage to the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness,” said Peter Metcalf CEO/President of Black Diamond, Inc. “This decision made no sense, particularly when congressional leaders, conservation organizations, the American outdoor industry, and tens of thousands of citizens endorsed an alternative drilling plan that would have allowed Gasco to develop the majority of the project area and at the same time protected the sanctity of the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness.  This decision didn’t square with my understanding of President Obama and Secretary Salazar’s call for a balanced approach to energy development.”

“This is a drastic expansion of drilling in Utah’s proposed Desolation Canyon wilderness and frankly, it was a terribly misguided decision by the Department of the Interior,” said Sharon Buccino, director of NRDC’s Land and Wildlife program. “Beyond threatening a remarkable landscape, this approval will aggravate the Uinta Basin’s serious ozone pollution levels; levels which right now are once again spiking well above federal standards. Americans hunger for wild lands, not another industrialized spot with bad air.”

“The Interior Department should have followed the Environmental Protection Agency proposal to reduce the project’s footprint and protect the Desolation Canyon wilderness, while still allowing the company to develop its leases,” said Stephen Bloch, General Counsel for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “By bowing to the company’s proposal, Secretary Salazar put one company’s profits above the protection of this world-class landscape.  Americans are worse off because of this short-sighted decision.”

“Desolation Canyon and Nine Mile Canyon along the Green River are some of the wildest places left in Utah, and they should be protected from drilling,” said Nada Culver, Director and Senior Counsel of The Wilderness Society’s BLM Action Center. “The Interior Department’s decision to permit the drilling of 215 new oil and gas wells in this remarkable region is simply unacceptable, especially when there are other, better alternatives for this project.”

“Desolation Canyon is an essential part of one of the nation’s most important wildlife areas, the Book Cliffs,” said Mark Clemens of the Utah Chapter of Sierra Club.  “We call this area America’s Serengeti.  To mar this area permanently with 215 natural gas wells is a serious error in land-management decision making.”

Background on the Gasco project:

The BLM has described the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness as one of the largest unprotected 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 awe-inspiring. In approving the so-called Gasco Energy, Inc. development project, the Interior Department authorized nearly 1300 wells, 215 of which are in the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness area (along with roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure in an area that federal officials agree is a wilderness caliber landscape).  An alternative proposal supported by the Environmental Protection Agency, congressional leaders and tens of thousands of citizens from across the country would have allowed for more than 1,100 new natural gas wells while protecting the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness.

The Interior Department considered two alternatives to the company’s proposed action, both of which would have provided ample drilling opportunities for the company but barred drilling in the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness and afforded greater protections for the Green River and Nine Mile Canyon badlands. But the administration ended up supporting the company’s plans to drill in all these sensitive places. Gasco – a Colorado-based natural gas company – has now begun the permitting process at a time when Eastern Utah has experienced several years of record high wintertime ozone levels that is largely linked to oil and gas development. According to Gasco’s own data, this project will add to those unsafe pollution levels.

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On Wednesday the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a favorable ruling in Impact Energy v. Salazar.  We blogged a short “breaking news” blurb that day.  It is worth further reflection since it encapsulates some of the most important issues on the public lands front over the last few years.

Impact Energy v. Salazar was a lawsuit—brought by three oil and gas companies and three Utah counties—challenging Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s February 2009 decision to withdraw the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) offer to lease the infamous 77 oil and gas lease parcels on public lands.

However, Secretary Salazar was not acting in a vacuum.  SUWA’s members and others raised an intense outcry regarding these leases in December of 2008.  This produced significant media coverage and scrutiny of the lease sale.  The following month, in January 2009, SUWA won a temporary restraining order in federal court preventing the BLM from issuing the 77 leases in the first place. Within in a few weeks, the newly appointed Sec. Salazar realized the mistake the agency had made and scrapped the leases.

Upset at this outcome, the companies and counties filed a lawsuit challenging the Secretary’s decision.  Earthjustice intervened in this litigation on behalf of SUWA and other environmental organizations.  The Utah District Court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the companies and counties had filed too late in the day.  They then appealed to the Tenth Circuit but Wednesday’s ruling confirmed the original outcome and dismissed their claims based on their late filing.

This is good news in the short run for the lands threatened by the 77 leases.  The long-run outcome for these lands, however, remains uncertain.

These 77 leases included some of Utah’s most spectacular public lands (see photos and maps).  The BLM proposed leasing parcels at the doorstep of Arches and Canyonlands national parks, at the head of Desolation Canyon, in the depths of the White River’s amazing canyon, in Labyrinth Canyon, and even immediately adjacent to Dinosaur National Monument.  This fire sale in the waning days of the last president was made possible by one of the Bush Administration’s most lasting and pernicious legacies: six resource management plans (RMPs) completed in the fall of 2008.

Do not be fooled by the boring sounding title, resource management plans are critical documents that guide the BLM’s day-to-day management of public lands.  They act like city zoning plans, determining where and when certain activities can take place.  SUWA constantly is fighting poor choices made by the BLM to allow oil and gas development on sensitive lands, off-road vehicle travel in inappropriate places, and so on.  These mistakes often have their genesis in the fact that a given RMP may make 90% of an entire field office available to oil and gas development or the fact that the six plans combined designate over 20,000 miles of dirt routes for vehicle travel.

It is these RMPs that the BLM relied on to determine that it would offer the 77 leases in the first place.  Although the 77 leases may be dead, those RMPs are not.  Hence, these same remarkable public lands remain available for the chopping block.  The whims of the current administration and random bureaucrats are all that prevent them from being placed in the crosshairs again shortly.

SUWA is seeking to change those RMPs and is currently engaged in litigation to do just that.  We hope that our efforts will ultimately pay off in a more thoughtful approach to public lands management that remove us from this gerbil wheel of ill-advised leasing decisions.