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Record-breaking wildfires in 2020 turned huge swaths of Western forests into barren burn scars. Those forests store winter snowpack that millions of people rely on for drinking and irrigation water. But with such large and wide-reaching fires, the science on the short-term and long-term effects to the region’s water supplies isn’t well understood.
Tue December 29, 2020 - West Edition #1 Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) A group of rural counties in Utah has suspended a highway construction project that would run through the Book Cliffs in Grand County. The group — called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition — unanimously voted to halt the project because of opposition from residents who live in the county where the highway would be built, KUER-FM reported. The 35-mi. (56-km) road was first proposed in the 1980s to move oil out of the Uinta Basin, county officials said. It was estimated to cost about $350 million back in 2...
4:53 You can find Lee and Debbie Elmgreens ranch at a shrubby fork in the narrow canyons of the Book Cliffs. On a recent fall day the greens have a map of southeastern Utah spread across their dining room table. Lee Elmgreen is reading a new report by the Bureau of Land Management. It's a 1300 page study of a plan to put a massive road in their backyard. LEE: The scope of this work included a review of available information. And a one day visual windshield reconnaissance of the project. The 35-mile highway would carve through the enormous stretch of undesignated wilderness that ab...
Highway project through Book Cliffs in eastern Utah suspended (Rick Egan | Tribune file photo) The Book Cliffs near State Road 45, south of Vernal. By The Associated Press | Updated: Dec. 23, 2020, 12:53 a.m. A group of rural counties in Utah has suspended a highway construction project that would run through the Book Cliffs in Grand County. The group — called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition — unanimously voted Friday to halt the project because of opposition from residents who live in the county where the highway would be built, KUER-FM reported. The 35-mile road was first p...
KZMU News: Monday December 21, 2020 Plans for a 35-mile highway through the Book Cliffs are suspended, after the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition voted to stop their work on an environmental study. Grand County officials have long opposed proposals for the road, raising concerns about the price tag, energy development, and potential harm to the environment. In recent months, both Grand County and a private landowner said they would not relinquish right of ways to build the road. And later, New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland is poised to become our nation’s first Indigenous cabinet se...