Rural Counties to See Big Bucks from New Lands Policy

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) Utah's rural counties could see big bucks from a bill passed by the legislature this year. It applies to land swaps Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration makes with the Federal Bureau of Land Management.

"It allows the county governments where land exchanges happen, to get a direct financial benefit," says John Andrews, chief legal counsel for the School Trust Lands Administration. "We hope that will encourage county governments to support these conservation exchanges."

Andrews says the new law could have made a big difference in the contentious exchange that created the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

"There wouldn't have been as much opposition among the local governments, I believe," says Andrews.

In that deal, Utah traded the monument land for oil and gas rich acreage managed by the federal government elsewhere in the state. But counties that hoped to drill for profits in the Escalante area couldn't tap into proceeds from mining and drilling leases on the new land.

"You had Kane and Garfield feeling they had these tremendous resources on the verge of development. With the creation of the monument, they felt left out," says Andrews.

The mineral rich lands Utah traded for the Grand Staircase National Monument have generated 138-million dollars in oil and gas leases to date, says Andrews. In the future, those revenues will be split between the school trust lands fund and local governments. The next such exchange involves scenic vistas along the Colorado River in Moab.

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