March 20th, 2008

GCI Blasts BLM Oil Shale & Tar Sands Plan!

On March 20, the public comment period ended on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). Thank you to everyone who submitted comments opposing this destructive plan! Glen Canyon Institute (GCI) joined 25 other organizations from Utah and across the country in filing comments that strongly opposed the BLM Plan because it would devastate the environment, harm local communities, and violate the law.

The final plan is expected to be issued later in 2008. We will keep you informed of future developments on this important issue!

March 24th, 2008

Plan to 'flush' Grand Canyon stirs concerns

The Grand Canyon is about to take a bath, and National Park Service officials who oversee the natural wonder are worried. Federal flood control managers, led by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, this week plan to unleash millions of cubic feet of water from behind Glen Canyon Dam to "flush" the huge canyon bottom with a simulated springtime flood.

February 27th, 2008

Lake Mead Dry

There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead, a key source of water for millions of people in the southwestern United States, will be dry by 2021 if climate changes as expected and future water usage is not curtailed, according to a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Without Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell, the Colorado River system has no buffer to sustain the population of the Southwest through an unusually dry year, or worse, a sustained drought. In such an event, water deliveries would become highly unstable and variable, said research marine physicist Tim Barnett and climate scientist David Pierce.

February 20th, 2008

Potential Water Crisis Looming

It's the most worrisome forecast yet for the water supply of the desert Southwest. Scientists at a prestigious institution say a crisis is coming unless there are major policy changes. There have been gloomy forecasts before, but this is the bleakest yet if you love Lake Powell or if you care about water for big cities to our south and west. Government experts are skeptical about the specifics of the forecast, but they agree there's plenty to worry about.

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February 1, 2008

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its Monticello Draft Resource Management Plan (DRMP) in November 2007. The planning area covers 1.8 million acres of lands administered by the Monticello Field Office in southeastern Utah.

This plan will have a major impact, not only on a vast expanse of BLM lands, but also on the adjacent Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA), Canyonlands National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Hovenweep National Monument, as well as the Colorado River watershed.

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November 27, 2007

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
proposes destructive excavation
to deepen Castle Rock Cut boat channel

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area has proposed a destructive excavation to deepen Castle Rock Cut boat channel. With your help, we can stop this project. Send your comments to the National Park Service by December 4th!

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