Bears Ears Is Open for Mining But No One Bothered to Show Up
- State agency says prospector applications in area non-existent
- Geology is ‘not good’ for energy or mining, spokeswoman says
Photographer: George Frey/Getty Images
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Early on Friday morning, vast swathes of the red-rock high plateau that surrounds federally protected buttes in southern Utah were officially thrown open to miners.
A controversial decision weeks earlier by President Donald Trump had shrunk the size of two national monuments -- known as Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante -- by hundreds of thousands of acres, enraging environmentalists and American Indian groups who feared a stampede of mine and oil wildcatters would rush in and destroy the area’s sandstone vistas, historic rock carvings and artifacts. And yet, five days in, not only has there been no stampede, but no one has shown up at all.