Environmentalists on Monday filed a lawsuit to prompt the Interior Department to issue management plans for a pair of national monuments in Nevada that remain without final guidelines nearly a decade after their creation.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, the Center for Biological Diversity accused the Bureau of Land Management of “unreasonably” delaying management plans for two Obama-era national monuments. The lawsuit focuses on the 704,000-acre Basin and Range National Monument created in 2015 and the 300,000-acre Gold Butte National Monument established in 2016.
The BLM, which declined to comment, has yet to finalize management plans for either of the sites.
“We’re suing because the landscapes, plants, animals and cultural resources these monuments are supposed to protect are suffering from the BLM’s continued neglect,” Patrick Donnelly, the CBD’s Great Basin director, said in a statement.
