The Bureau of Land Management has transferred more than 600 acres to Utah that will be added to two state parks as part of legislation sponsored last year by two Republican lawmakers who recently championed efforts to sell federal lands.
The federal lands at issue are mostly isolated BLM parcels that are either entirely within or connected to two Utah state parks, and their transfer was not controversial.
The move is part of BLM’s “commitment to efficient land management” in the West, said Michael Gates, manager of BLM’s West Desert District, in a statement.
The land transfer comes at a time when Utah’s congressional delegation has pushed the sale or transfer of potentially millions of acres of federal lands to Western states, mostly for use in building new housing.
