Six of Colorado's 13 national park units were created under the same law President Donald Trump used this month to shrink two major Utah monuments, and the National Parks Conservation Association says Coloradans should be extremely concerned.
Trump used the Antiquities Act to reduce Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah from a combined 3.2 million acres to less than 303,000 acres — a cut of about 90% each.
▶️ Denver7 Anchor Shannon Ogden talks with Colorado's senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association
Tracy Coppola, Colorado senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said Colorado's parks face real risk.
"If it can happen in Utah, it can happen here. And that's not alarmist," Coppola said.
Colorado has 13 national park units, including national monuments, historic sites and national parks. Coppola said the scope of the threat is broad.
"I look at all 13 national park units. So our national monuments, our historic sites, our big 'P' parks... and almost half of them were created by the Antiquities Act, by what the president is going after and dismantling," Coppola said.
When asked whether there is genuine reason to be concerned that what happened in Utah could happen to one of Colorado's four national parks, Coppola was direct.
"Yes. Absolutely," Coppola said.
When asked about her overall level of concern, Coppola did not hesitate.
"My level of concern is extremely high," Coppola said.
A national monument designation provides sweeping protections not just for significant geological features or artifacts but also for the surrounding landscape, banning drilling, mining and new construction nearby. Proponents of Trump's move to downsize the Utah monuments say the protective boundaries stretched too far and hindered mining for critical minerals.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante contain ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that Utah state officials want made available for development. President Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante in 1996, and President Barack Obama created Bears Ears in 2016 under the Antiquities Act — the 1906 law that gives presidents the power to protect sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important.
Trump took similar action during his first term, but those reductions were reversed by President Joe Biden. The latest cuts are deeper: During his first term, Trump left Grand Staircase-Escalante at 1 million acres and Bears Ears at 213,000 acres.
Bears Ears was the first national monument created at the request of tribal nations that consider the land sacred. Its designation honored five tribes — Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Uintah-Ouray Ute. The landscape contains ancestral villages, ceremonial and burial sites and features in some tribes' creation and migration stories.
Coppola called the reductions a betrayal.
"It's a disgrace. It's absolutely a betrayal to the American people, certainly to the tribes," Coppola said. "It's a whole other level of betrayal."
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The NPCA plans to fight the reductions in court and increase lobbying efforts in Congress. Coppola urged the public to get involved as well.
"Truly, I think, organize more. Talk to your electeds. Talk to all kinds of facets of this landscape whether it be tourism, outdoor recreation businesses," Coppola said.
Utah officials had long fought against the monument designations and argued that the state should be in charge of controlling its own lands. Trump in his first term reduced their size, calling their creation a “massive land grab.” Combined they spanned more than 3.2 million acres, an area nearly the size of Connecticut.
Trump reduced them Monday to less than 303,000 acres combined.
That’s a greater reduction than his first term, when he left Grand Staircase Escalante at 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) and Bears Ears at 213,000 acres (86,000 hectares).
“This is a big day for Utah,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as he stood next to Trump at the White House. “These monument designations are supposed to be the smallest area as possible to protect the antiquities.”
Home to hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural and scientific significance, Bears Ears is jointly managed by an agreement between tribal nations and federal agencies.
Grand Staircase-Escalante consists of cliffs, canyons, natural arches and archaeological sites, including rock paintings. It holds large coal reserves, while the Bears Ears area has uranium.
The national monument designation provides sweeping protections not just for significant geological features or artifacts but also for the surrounding landscape, banning drilling, mining and new construction nearby. Proponents of Trump’s move to downsize say the protective boundaries stretch too far and hinder mining for critical minerals.
Trump asserted Monday that people can not hunt, fish or “virtually not even walk” on the monuments. That’s false: Hunting, fishing, camping and other recreation are permitted under state and federal regulations, said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a conservation group.
Biden designated or expanded more than a dozen monuments and had a goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Trump’s policies are largely the opposite: He wants to tap into the natural resource wealth of federal lands that total more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) and offshore areas under federal control, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
That’s drawn backlash from Democrats who warn of the wholesale disposal of treasured landscapes for commercial gain.
“Today’s executive action is another chapter in this administration’s war on the West,” Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday. He added that Trump was “turning the Antiquities Act on its head.”
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Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last year that federal officials would review and consider redrawing monument boundaries as part of a push to expand U.S. energy production.
Trump in his current term has used proclamations to lift commercial fishing prohibitions within expansive marine monuments in areas of the Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast. Those monuments were created by Democratic and Republican administrations. The effort to boost the fishing industry, which has been challenged in court, marks a dramatic shift in federal policy by prioritizing commercial interests over efforts to allow the fish supply to increase.
Some Republicans have tried to sell or transfer federal lands to states or other entities. Those efforts have largely fallen flat: A push by some GOP lawmakers in the House to sell public lands ran into bipartisan opposition, while another proposal by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands was removed from Republicans’ big tax and spending bill.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year turned back a lawsuit from Utah officials who sought to wrest control of vast areas of public land within the state from the federal government.
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