Remember "Drill, baby, drill?"
What a difference a change in administration makes.
Despite (and probably because of) the BLM's recent retreat on leasing hundreds of thousands of acres of Utah backcountry for energy development, conservationists and Utahns who make their living from the red rock's natural beauty aren't letting up on the pressure to protect tourism and cultural resources with names like Labyrinth Canyon, Book Cliffs and Canyonlands.
The hundreds of protests filed this week included criticism of the leasing from the businesses that sell outdoors equipment and Utah-based river runners and guides.
The drumbeat of protest has intensified with groups, including Trout Unlimited, add
ing complaints that a 30-years of work in restoring Utah's native Bonneville cutthroat trout could be wasted if an oil- and gas-lease sale in the West Desert's Deep Creek Mountains (yet another evocative name) goes through.The BLM will decide the fate of 430 square miles of Utah on Dec. 19.
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