Utah BLM swings the door wide for ATVs and energy development
The worn walls of the ruins in Cedar Mesa change colors as the sun moves across the sky, glowing orange-red in the late afternoon to match the cliffs above and below them. The southeastern Utah site, home to ancestral Puebloans on and off from about 1 to 1300 A.D., remains fairly unspoiled, thanks to special federal protection. But now the Bureau of Land Management plans to open up the area for more recreational use. Agency officials say this will better protect the ruins, but archaeologists fear it could destroy them. Cedar Mesa is just one of the places that would lose protection under six proposed resource management plans recently released by Utah’s BLM. The documents cement a 20-year management strategy for wilderness, cultural resource preservation, energy development, hiking, grazing and motorized recreation across about 11 million acres of public land, including nearly all of the state’s red-rock country. In their current forms, the plans open about 80 percent of this land to energy development. Nearly half a million acres of unique natural and cultural sites, like Cedar Mesa, will lose their status as areas of critical environmental concern. That means more visitors and fewer protective measures. Off-road vehicles will be able to crisscross the delicate desert landscape on more than 17,000 miles of designated routes. The vast majority of roadless areas with wilderness value will be opened to both motorized recreation and oil and gas drilling....