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By Joe Deaux Bloomberg News Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Early last 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 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 that a stampede of mine and oil wildcatters would rush in and destroy the area's sandstone vistas and historic rock carvings and artifacts. And yet, five days in, not only has there been no stampede, no one has shown up at all.
The Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining says it hasn't received a single permit application for plots in the areas. ...
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-...s-mining-rus...
