SUWA Sues Over Tar Sands Leases

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is among several plaintiffs who have filed suit to block federal officials from reactivating old oil and gas leases in some of Utah's national monuments.

"Our lawsuit really focuses on the effort by the BLM to come back now in 2007 and allow these lessees to have a second bite of the apple for what would really be some very destructive activities on some of the west's most spectacular lands," says SUWA executive director Steve Bloch.

Those lands include Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. SUWA and its co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim the Bureau of Land Management cannot reinstate the oil and gas leases because the requests were not made before the leases expired. Many of the expired leases were granted twenty years ago, when tar sands development was not popular. If the leases are reinstated, they will still require extensive environmental impact studies before tar sands exploration begins.

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