WASHINGTON • The Interior Department said Thursday it is withdrawing protections for 10 million acres of federal lands used by the threatened sage grouse to open it up for energy development.
The plan would allow mining and other development in areas where it now is prohibited in six Western states: Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. Utah‘s share of that now-reversed mineral withdrawal affected 231,000 acres in Box Elder, Cache and Rich counties.
The Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, said a recent analysis showed that mining or grazing would not pose a significant threat to sage grouse, a ground-dwelling, chicken-like bird that roams across vast areas of the West.