The fate of nearly 200,000 acres of federal and state land largely situated in east-central Utah has been decided in a massive deal announced Thursday that was years in the making.
Under the deal, the Bureau of Land Management will get about 116,042 acres — over 109,000 of which are in Emery County alone. Much of that land is already near congressionally designated wilderness areas like the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, allowing for better public access and more effective land management, officials say.
In exchange, the state’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) will receive about 89,390 acres of resource-rich land from the BLM, which can be developed and in turn drive revenue that officials say stands to benefit Utah’s public schools.
According to a notice of decision issued by the BLM, the deal was initially mandated by the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 — a law that encompassed many regional land situations across the nation.
As part of the legislation, all traded land needed to be considered equal in value.
The 116,042 acres the BLM will receive in Utah consists of 217 parcels, but a few are “contiguous and form larger blocks of land,” the notice states.
The land bound for SITLA has been grouped into 48 parcels that mostly span Emery, Juab, Rich and Beaver counties, with additional pieces located in Carbon, Iron, Kane, Millard, San Juan, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Uintah, Utah and Wasatch counties.
“Their goal is to make money for the kids in Utah, students of Utah,” BLM spokesperson Cindy Gallo said of the Trust Lands Administration. “These lands that we’re exchanging with them are hopefully going to be more in line with their goals, while these parcels we’re receiving — particularly here in Emery County — will help us manage the recreation area in a more contiguous way.”
She said the trade will also increase the size of the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, which was established through the Dingell Act of 2019, a BLM-managed area that’s unique as it’s not a national recreation area but still beholden to rules and restrictions outlined in the legislation. Among them is the provision that new oil and gas leases won’t be issued, but established agreements will be honored, she said.
“This is a one of a kind situation‚" she said. “It’s kind of a new frontier."
Utah Republican Rep. John Curtis, who was recently elected to the U.S. Senate, chimed in on the completion of the deal Thursday, championing it as the final product of the Emery County Land Bill he proposed in 2018, which was included in the Dingell Act of 2019.
“This bipartisan legislation embodies the principle that local communities know best how to manage their own lands,” he said in a news release. “Working across the aisle and in concert with local leaders and federal agencies we can achieve results that solve real problems.”
According to the BLM’s notice, the legal transfer is expected to be finished early next year.
