Plan allows drilling, grazing near Utah national monument

SALT LAKE CITY — A new U.S. government management plan unveiled Friday clears the way for coal mining and oil and gas drilling on land that used to be off limits as part of a sprawling national monument in Utah before President Donald Trump downsized the protected area two years ago.

The plan released by the Bureau of Land Management would also open more lands to cattle grazing and recreation and acknowledges there could be “adverse effects” on land and resources in the monument.

But while allowing more activities, the plan would also add a few safeguards for the cliffs, canyons, waterfalls and arches still inside Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that weren’t in a proposed plan issued last year.

Among them are opening fewer acres to ATVs and canceling a plan that would have allowed people to collect some non-dinosaur fossils in certain areas.

The BLM says no land will be sold from the 1,345 square miles that were cut from what had been the 3,000 square miles of the monument.

The monument has seen a 63% increase in visitors over the past decade, hosting 1.1 million people from October 2017 through September 2018, according to federal government figures.

Conservation and paleontology groups have filed ongoing lawsuits to stop the downsizing.

They say the new plan lacks adequate protections for the land and reiterated their concern that the years spent creating the plan were a waste of taxpayer resources because the lawsuits remain unresolved.