Parts of Utah monuments stripped of protection are available for mining.

Land accessible to oil, gas, coal companies

SALT LAKE CITY — The window opened for oil, gas, uranium and coal companies to make requests or stake claims to lands that were cut from two Utah national monuments by President Donald Trump in December —but there doesn’t appear to be a rush to seize the opportunities.

For anyone interested in the uranium on the lands stripped from the Bears Ears National Monument, all they need to do is stake a few corner posts in the ground, pay a $212 initial fee and send paperwork to the federal government under a law first created in 1872.

They can then keep rights to the hard minerals, including gold and silver, if they pay an annual fee of $155.

The Bureau of Land Management declined requests for information about how they’re handling the lands and how many requests and claims came in.

Steve Bloch, legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said he was told by the BLM on Friday that inquiries were made but no claims sent in.

He said other conservation groups that have sued to block the downsized monument boundaries are watching to ensure no lands are disturbed in the short-term, hoping a judge will return the monuments to the original boundaries.

Two of the largest uranium companies in the U.S. — Ur-Energy Inc. and Energy Fuels Resources Inc. — said they have no plans to mine there. The price of uranium, which has fallen to about $22 per pound, would “discourage any investment in new claims,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.

Colorado-based Energy Fuels asked for a reduction of Bears Ears last year in a public comment, but spokesman Curtis Moore said in a statement that the company has higher priorities elsewhere. He noted the lands were open to claims for 150 years before President Barack Obama creating the national monument in 2016.

In Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — part of a coal reserve that a company was preparing to mine before President Bill Clinton protected the lands in 1996 — has been made available again, but it appears unlikely any company will jump at the chance this time.

Out-of-state demand for Utah’s coal had led to a drop in coal production to about 14 million tons in 2017, down from about 27 million tons in the mid-2000s, said Michael Vanden Berg, energy and mineral program manager at the Utah Geological Survey.

Francisco Kjolseth The Associated Press An aerial view of Arch Canyon within Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Parts that were cut from the monument by President Donald Trump are now accessible for mining.