After several failed attempts at land exchanges, Utah
is giving the idea another try. In early May, Rep. Chris Cannon,
R-Utah, reintroduced the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act. The
bill would give the federal government 46,000 acres of land in
southeastern and northeastern Utah, while the state would receive
40,000 acres in the northeast.
The Bureau of Land
Management stands to gain popular recreation areas, including bike
trails near Moab and land along a rafting route through Westwater
Canyon. It would also receive potential wilderness areas near
Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. For its part,
the Utah Trust Lands Administration would get land in the oil-rich
Uintah Basin, which it plans to lease to generate revenue for
public schools. The swap would be the state’s first major
land exchange since a deal on the San Rafael Swell was halted in
2002, after a BLM whistleblower alleged that the appraisal process
had overvalued state lands (HCN, 11/25/02: Report slams BLM’s
land-exchange process).
“The appraisal process is more
transparent than in 2002,” says Dave Hebertson, spokesman for the
Utah Trust Lands Administration. But critics say the process is
still flawed: It overvalues the conservation and recreation
potential of the state’s land in comparison with the federal
land, which has oil and gas potential. “The state is getting
special treatment,” says Chris Krupp, staff attorney for the
Western Land Exchange Project.
Nonetheless, the proposal
has statewide support and “would not open up any land that was not
already slated for oil and gas development,” says Laura Kamala of
the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust. “It’s a good, common-sense
solution for consolidating a lot of land along the Colorado River
that would otherwise be subject to privatization and development.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline State takes another shot at land swapping.
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