Postcards from the Field

Dispatches from the front lines of conservation across the Colorado Plateau.

BY TRUST STAFF

UTAH FORESTS

Aspen thrive on Monroe Mountain

It took four of us: a Forest Service research botanist (who found the world’s oldest known ponderosa pine back in 2003 in Utah), the director of the Sevier County Extension, who helps farmers, ranchers, and residents with crops and agricultural animals, the central region coordinator of Utah’s Grazing Improvement Program, and me. For three days in late July, we took photos and measured aspen inside and outside six half-acre plots scattered across Monroe Mountain in central Utah. These plots — called exclosures — are surrounded by high fences that keep deer, elk, cattle, and domestic sheep out and allow aspen sprouts to grow.

Why the tape measures? We were there to find out whether — and how fast old — aspen stands that have been unable to recruit new aspen over six feet tall can resume growing them once their sprouts aren’t being eaten.  As of 2018, Monroe Mountain almost certainly sports the largest number of current aspen research studies on the Colorado Plateau — all due to federal, state, university, and nonprofit efforts to answer questions raised by the Monroe Mountain Working Group, a collaboration working to restore aspen on the mountain. The mountain is doing its part as well, with fire removing conifers that block out sunlight and the land getting some well-deserved rest from grazing, giving aspen the time and the space it needs to thrive.

URANIUM

ED MOSS

Preventing another toxic legacy

Contamination from past uranium mining on the Colorado Plateau has created public health problems and over a billion dollars in taxpayer liability. Today, uranium continues to put communities and the environment at risk. While the saturated global uranium market has tamped down the need for new mines for three decades, the mining industry is seizing upon this administration’s protectionist agenda. In May 2018, uranium was added to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s list of critical minerals despite the opinions of experts in defense and nuclear power that there is no risk of a uranium shortage.

Now the administration is considering quotas for uranium that would force U.S. nuclear power plants to purchase uranium mined domestically, driving up prices and making mining from our public lands profitable for internationally owned companies. The Grand Canyon Trust is bringing the truth about the disingenuous intentions of industry to the forefront. Our public lands are far too precious to risk for the profit of a few.