Southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has helped shield archaeological sites from vandalism, bolstered tourism and spurred scientific discovery during the two decades since its designation — all without displacing cattle operations that have long used these public lands in Kane and Garfield counties.
That’s what the Bureau of Land Management wrote in a report released earlier this month.
The next day, however, the agency released redacted documents that downplayed those benefits and, in doing so, painted a picture that the monument might not be necessary to protect the resources within its 1.9 million-acre boundaries.
The BLM pulled back that 23-page report and others, part of a massive document drop, saying they were released in error, The Washington Post first reported. It then released redacted versions.
“You have the secretary being warned, ‘If you get rid of the national monument protections in Grand Staircase-Escalante, you will be leaving sacred Native American sites unprotected, and there is no way to replace those protections with the existing patchwork of laws,” said Aaron Weiss, media director for the left-leaning Center for Western Priorities, which had downloaded the unredacted report. “They were really clear about that. Then they tried to hide that from the American people in the document dump.”
Critics contend the redactions were made because the material undermined Interior’s rationale for shrinking monuments and offer proof that the outcome of Zinke’s monument review was preordained with an eye toward mineral extraction on lands struck from Grand Staircase and Bears Ears national monuments....