Trump cut Grand Staircase-Escalante nearly in half to spur a mining boom. But those lost protections
Source: Washington Post
A DIMINISHED MONUMENT
Trump cut Grand Staircase-Escalante nearly in half to spur a mining boom. But those lost protections may not yield big profits.
Text by Juliet Eilperin | Photos by Bonnie Jo Mount Jan. 15, 2019
ESCALANTE, Utah — On the eastern end of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, narrow slot canyons shoot through the rocks in shades of terra-cotta red and pale peach. To the west stand surreal rock spires, the hoodoos for which the badlands are known. But what’s buried beneath undulating gray formations here is what caught Washington’s attention: coal.
Decades ago, that gray swath signaled big profits for any company prepared to dig it up. But today, even the government officials charged with assessing the roughly 9 billion tons of coal deposits say they are unlikely to attract investors’ interest.
Most public-lands battles play out with a predictable script: An industry wants something, and environmentalists resist. But in the case of President Trump’s decision to scale back protections in this patch of southern Utah, the battleground has shifted.
In this fight, ideology has triumphed over economics.
While administration officials trumpet a potential coal boom here, it’s unclear whether there will be many takers. Several of the tourist operators, conservation groups and researchers who invested in the area over the past two decades fear that even a modest amount of mining will undermine the landscape’s main attractions: unimpaired vistas and a snapshot of when dinosaurs roamed North America.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/environment/will-anyone-mine-after-grand-staircase-escalante-reduction-by-trump/
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