July 15 marked the day that would have nullified another Bush-era act in regards to the environment. It would have been a day for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Wilderness Society to cheer. It would have been a day that released around 15,000 acres of sensitive land from the firing squad of oil and gas development. It would have been. But it wasn’t.

Read more of this story »

With some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes, Utah is a haven for the seeker of peace and a respite from the industrialization of the modern world. But those lands have long been in the cross hairs of development’s long sight. With the possibility of an oil well beneath the Fisher Towers, a mine in Moab’s Goldbar Canyon or an off-road vehicle trail paralleling the Colorado River in Westwater Canyon, lovers of the land have fought for decades to preserve the solitude of the desert.

Read more of this story »

Oil and gas leases have been a hot topic for a long time, especially since the controversial disruption of a BLM land sale by student activist Tim DeChristopher in Salt Lake City this past December. The sale which, according to some, was a midnight move by the Bush administration found itself floundering when an unknown bidder (DeChristopher) won parcel after parcel of land. Since December the leased parcels have been pulled back and forth between the BLM and the Interior, between developers and nature-lovers.

This story goes back before DeChristopher, back before the rushed lease sale. Yet it shows that the tug-o-war has been going on for years; and it hasn’t stopped. When the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) recently told the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that it cannot move forward with 11 oil and gas leases without following federal cultural preservation law and consulting with concerned Native American tribes, a sigh was heard coming from Nine Mile Canyon in southern Utah.

Read more of this story »

The agreement “gives SUWA certainty that oil and gas development in an important part of the Hatch Point proposed wilderness area will be subject to the applicable Resource Management Plan and additional restrictions,” said Stephen Bloch, Conservation Director and Attorney for SUWA.

Read more of this story »

An environmental activist threw “into chaos” the Bureau of Land Management auction of leases on federal lands for oil and gas development recently approved by outgoing president George Bush. The sale has been characterized by the Natural Resources Defense Council as a “Midnight Land Sale” of 110,000 acres near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Nine Mile Canyon. The auction on Friday was disrupted by a bidder who “tainted the entire auction” by bidding the price up on several parcels of land by hundreds of thousand of dollars with no real intention of paying for the bids.

Read more of this story »

Friday’s auction of public land oil and gas leases by BLM Utah was thrown into chaos by local activist Tim DeChristopher, who bid the prices up on parcels of land he has no intention of paying for.

“I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself.” -DeChristopher

Bidding was halted for a time, and now buyers will have 10 days to reconsider and withdraw their bids. Kent Hoffman, deputy state director, BLM Utah, said, “He’s tainted the entire auction.”

Read more of this story »