National Park Service warned lease sale Tuesday could harm national monument in Utah
The Bureau of Land Management disregarded a request by the National Park Service that it hold off leasing 17,000 acres of public land in Utah on Tuesday because of concerns that drilling there could harm Hovenweep National Monument’s views and air, groundwater and sound quality.
All 13 parcels were sold online as part of a broader sale, with the lease prices ranging from $3 to roughly $91 an acre.
According to an Oct. 23 letter, the Park Service outlined concerns about future oil and gas drilling activities on not just Hovenweep, but also three other sites under its jurisdiction in southern Utah: Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Natural Bridges National Monument.
The parcels in the southeast part of the state also lie near Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, although that is across the border in Colorado.
The visiting public expects high-quality experiences across federal land, and we are concerned that continuing to offer parcels for oil and gas exploration and development in proximity to our parks will be detrimental” to those experiences,” wrote Kate Cannon, superintendent of the Park Service’s Southeast Utah Group.
The seven-page letter critiques several aspects of the environmental analysis the bureau conducted in preparation for the sale, including the extent to which smog-forming ozone represents a threat to Canyonlands and the fact that the bureau did not consider “the significant potential for degradation of dark night skies and soundscapes that would result from oil and gas exploration and development on the lease parcels.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/national-park-service-warned-lease-sale-tuesday-could-harm-national-monument-in-utah/ar-BBKtQRw?ocid=spartandhp
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