In Utah, A Public-land Fight On An Epic Scale

Drilling, recreation, and other uses compete in a battle echoing over millions of acres in the West.

1 minute read

August 8, 2003, 5:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


Much of the area around Moab is protected as national parks - Arches and Canyonlands. It's the much larger areas of federal land around them that lies at the heart of a controversy that extends throughout the West. It's already rattling around Congress, and it soon could reach the United States Supreme Court. The heart of the matter -- as it's always been with publicly owned lands - is the balance between preservation and development... Today, the Bush administration wants to expand energy development on federal lands - some of it nearby national parks. It wants to limit the creation of new wilderness areas."

Thanks to Chris Steins

Thursday, August 7, 2003 in The Christian Science Monitor

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