There’s no question that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
have a tough job. They aren’t as celebrated as rangers in our national parks
and national forests, but their job is just as important to balance multiple
use and natural resources on public lands such as outdoor recreation, wildlife
habitat, watersheds, air quality, energy development, and mining.
All too often, things get divisive as “us versus them” in
the public lands debate with BLM land mangers stuck in the middle.
Utah BLM has shown it doesn’t have to be that way for Moab.
Last month, after a lot of hard work and outreach with stakeholders, they
developed a smart-from-the-start
approach for balancing oil and gas development with outdoor recreation and
tourism for public lands in the Moab area.
Outdoor recreation brings in hundreds of millions of dollars
in economic development to the Moab thanks to our stunning national parks and
the world-class recreation opportunities on adjacent BLM-managed public lands.
From visiting Arches and Canyonlands, to biking Slickrock
Trail, or rafting the Green River, opportunities abound to enjoy the Moab
area’s great outdoors. By attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors, public
lands pump money into the local economy, sustain businesses, and create jobs.
Not only are outdoor recreation and tourism fundamental
drivers in our local economy, they are critical to our local tax bases
providing 2.5 to 3.5 times more revenue than energy development and mining for Grand
County.
However, we don’t have to have a zero-sum game of one
industry versus another. Utah BLM has proven that we can have both a
robust economy built upon the protection of public lands and the responsible
development of oil and gas development and potash mining. Specifically, Alternative
C in the Moab Master Leasing Plan presents the best opportunity to protect
the lands critical to outdoor recreation and thousands of local jobs while
still allowing responsible drilling and mining projects to move forward.
In fact, 56 Utah businesses (more than 45 of which were
based in Moab) submitted a proposal backing a similar approach.
Striking that balance is no small feat, but that’s what Utah
BLM accomplished with Alternative C. For that great work and progress on the
Moab Master Leasing Plan, Utah BLM deserves high praise and thanks from the
Moab business community.
There’s still a long way to go before the Moab Master
Leasing Plan is finished, but Utah BLM is on the right track.
