Trump slashes two Utah national monuments by 2 million acres, splits what's left into five monuments - Entrepreneur Generations

Yesterday President Trump announced in Salt Lake City that he had reduced the area of two major national monuments in Utah and split them into five new monuments. "But several high-value sites the original monuments were designed to protect are left out," Brian Maffly reports for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Bear Ears National Monument was reduced from 1.35 million acres to 202,000 acres, and split into two new monuments: Shash Jaa (Navajo for Bear Ears) at 129,980 acres and Indian Creek at 71,896 acres. Grand Staircase-Escalante was reduced from 1.9 million acres to 1 million, and was split into three new monuments: Grand Staircase at 209,933 acres, Kaiparowits at 552,034 acres, and Escalante Canyon at 242,836 acres. "Trump’s order specifically authorizes grazing in the Bears Ears area as well as motorized recreation and American Indian gathering of wood and herbs, and it asks Congress to pass legislation to mandate co-management by tribal leaders," Thomas Burr and Lee Davidson report for the Tribune.

The original Bear Ears National Monument (light pink) with the two smaller monuments carved out in red: Indian Creek at top, and Shash Jaa at bottom. The brown dots are Bureau of Land Management sites proposed for oil and gas development. (Click here for the interactive map)

Formerly protected areas that were cut from the monuments include Cedar Mesa and Elk Ridge. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said more than 400,000 acres of Cedar Mesa is "inaccessible wilderness" and can't be effectively monitored and protected by the Interior. He said that as a wilderness, it is protected more than it would be as a monument. Other left out areas include the Valley of the Gods, Lockhart Basin, Mancos Mesa, most of the Hole in the Rock trail, Buckskin Mountain, Alvey Wash, Horizon Arch, and Carcass Canyon. Kaiparowits Plateau's boundaries were drawn in jagged lines apparently meant to free up some of its rich coal seams to mining. The new boundaries include chunks of non-contiguous protected areas, such as Dance Hall Rock. Paleontologist Jeff Eaton, who has worked on the plateau for more than 30 years, told Maffly that the new boundaries for Kaiparowits were a "land management nightmare."

The original Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (light blue) and the three new monuments in dark blue, L-R: Grand Staircase, Kaiparowits, and Escalante Canyons. (Click here for the interactive map)

Zinke said none of the land removed from monument status will be sold or transferred, and that it will return to its previous status as wilderness, national forest, or land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. "Raising the possibility of drilling and mining inside that monument’s former boundaries, 10 environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., alleging the Antiquities Act does not allow presidents to diminish or rescind monument designations by their predecessors," Burr and Davidson report.

Five Native American tribes--the Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian--filed suit yesterday as well. "In their lawsuit, posted late Monday, the tribes argue to the U.S. District Court in Washington that the Antiquities Act does not allow a president to revoke or modify a monument — only to designate one," Courtney Tanner reports for the Tribune.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2ARhEjT Trump slashes two Utah national monuments by 2 million acres, splits what's left into five monuments - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet