Coalition Partners Urge BLM to Protect Old Spanish National Historic Trail from Utah Oil and Gas Leasing

John W. Hiscock
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
Western Watersheds Project
Basin and Range Watch

Comments – DOI-BLM-UT-0000-2026-0005-EA – BLM Utah 2026 Third Quarter Competitive Oil and Gas Lease Sale Environmental Assessment

June 21, 2026

Bureau of Land Management
Utah State Office

To whom it may concern:

These comments regarding the proposed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) project: DOI-BLM-UT-0000-2026-0005-EA – BLM Utah 2026 Third Quarter Competitive Oil and Gas Lease Sale Environmental Assessment, are submitted by the following individuals and organizations: John W. Hiscock; Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks; Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance; Western Watersheds Project; and Basin and Range Watch.

The focus of these specific comments is on the severe impacts of the project on the North Branch Route and the Northern Route of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail (OSNHT) within the Moab Field Office area of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in southeast Utah. Specifically, we express profound concerns regarding the Department of the Interior (DOI), BLM, and National Park Service (NPS) administration, management, and protection of the OSNHT, its resources, and its values in the immediate vicinity of the proposed oil and gas lease parcels: 1805, 1806, 1809, 7935, 7937, 7941, and 7947, all of which are crossed by or proximate to the congressionally designated North Branch Route and Northern Route of the OSNHT, as well as recommendations for North Branch Route realignments by the OSNHT Co-Administrators – the NPS and BLM.

These comments on the Environmental Assessment (EA) are preceded by scoping phase comments from this same coalition dated April 15, 2026. We maintain that those scoping comments are entirely pertinent and valid, yet largely or wholly disregarded by the BLM.  Consequently, they are hereby formally incorporated and resubmitted as Appendix A to this comment submittal and should be further considered by BLM in its decision-making process on this project. The current EA fails to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and violates the restraints of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

In addition to the failure of DOI and BLM to fulfill statutory requirements of the NTSA described in the aforementioned scoping comments, the following additional problems exist with the EA.

• Failure To Comply with NTSA Mandates:

Due to the failure of the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and delegated Co-Administrators of the OSNHT – the BLM and NPS – to complete a Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) and establish a defined NTSA Trail Right-of-Way (ROW), the BLM lacks the baseline geographic data required to evaluate impacts of its oil and gas lease sale proposal, regarding all parcels previously noted, and both noted routes of the OSNHT. Consequently, the BLM cannot legally reach the mandatory finding that oil and gas leasing will avoid “substantial interference” with the nature and purposes of the OSNHT, required by NTSA. The BLM’s site-specific NEPA analysis is fatally invalid because it attempts to build a site-specific environmental review on a non-existent statutory foundation.

As pointed out in our previous scoping comments, in particular regard to the North Branch Route of the OSNHT, in limited and insufficient fashion, the BLM continues to address impacts to the Trail using the Co-Administrators’ recommended, yet legally insufficient, realignment of the North Branch Route set forth in its Comprehensive Administrative Strategy, rather than evaluating impacts to the congressionally established North Branch Route alignment.  Again, as stated, the also otherwise faulted EA review, is based on a geographically erroneous site-specific environmental review of an unauthorized DOI, NPS, and BLM realignment made in conflict with controlling law.

• The BLM’s Unlawful Elimination of a Trail Protection Alternative Mandates Selection of the No Action Alternative

The EA identified, but eliminated an alternative titled “Old Spanish National Historic Trail Avoidance Alternative” which under the current OSNHT administration and management scenario would have fulfilled NTSA protective requirements.  With the elimination of said alternative, the range of alternatives evaluated in the EA is legally deficient, leaving the selection of the No Action Alternative as the only lawful choice.

 o  The BLM Lacks the Baseline Data to Construct or Evaluate Action Alternatives

Again, under Section 7(c) of the National Trails System Act (NTSA), federal agencies are strictly prohibited from approving actions that ‘substantially affect the nature and purposes’ of a National Historic Trail. However, the BLM has currently failed to complete a Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) for the Old Spanish National Historic Trail (OSNHT) and has not established a valid statutory right-of-way width under the Act; critical procedural and substantive elements of the NTSA meant to inform and effectuate the management and protection of the Trail.

Absent a defined trail width and an established baseline of the trail’s ‘nature and purposes,’ the BLM possesses zero analytical foundation to determine what constitutes a ‘substantial effect.’ Consequently, any finding that the proposed action alternatives will not cause significant or unlawful impacts to the OSNHT is completely unsubstantiated and legally deficient under NEPA’s ‘hard look’ doctrine.

o  The Unlawful Exclusion of a Reasonable Alternative

According to the BLM NEPA Handbook (H-1790-1, Section 6.6.3), the agency may only eliminate an alternative from detailed study if it is ineffective, technically/economically infeasible, or clearly inconsistent with the project’s Purpose and Need.

The BLM has discarded a highly reasonable and legally necessary alternative: the elimination or deferral of all lease parcels within the unestablished corridor of the OSNHT pending completion of the CMP and issuance of a NTSA Trail ROW. The discarded alternative is the only option presented that guarantees compliance with the NTSA, other than the No Action alternative. Excluding the discarded alternative from detailed study while carrying forward action alternatives that risk violating a congressional mandate is a fatal procedural error that renders the entire range of alternatives arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

 o   Formal Demand for the No Action Alternative

Because the BLM has actively refused to evaluate a legally protective action alternative, and because the remaining action alternatives permit leasing within an undefined trail corridor in direct violation of the NTSA’s protective mandates, the BLM must select the No Action Alternative.

In this scenario, the No Action Alternative ceases to be merely a comparative baseline; it represents the only lawful decision path available to the Authorized Officer. Selecting any action alternative under this legally defective EA would constitute an abuse of discretion and a direct violation of substantive federal law. The BLM must withdraw these parcels and select No Action until a CMP is completed and a legal right-of-way width is promulgated.

• The BLM Has Failed to Evaluate the Possibility of Issuance of Road, Pipeline, and Other Collateral Oil and Gas Infrastructure ROWs Under the Applicable Provisions of NTSA Rendering the EA Additionally Deficient.

The NTSA mandates (see 16 U.S.C. §1248) that any collateral right-of-ways for oil and gas development (such as pipelines, access roads, or gathering lines) crossing the trail must be assessed and potentially granted or denied pursuant to National Park Service (NPS) laws and regulations. Because the BLM failed to integrate the mandatory NPS legal framework into its scoping, the NEPA analysis completely fails to assess the high probability that these essential collateral right-of-ways may not legally be granted under strict NPS standards. By ignoring this separate statutory requirement, the BLM has analyzed a proposed action that may be legally impossible to implement.

• The BLM Has Failed to Properly Evaluate the Interconnected Effects of Its Oil and Gas Lease Sales in the Moab Field Office Area.

The deficiencies in the BLM’s environmental review are compounded by a failure to consider Moab Field Office area wide ramifications of multiple oil and gas lease sales on contiguous stretches of the OSNHT.

 o  Unlawful Segmentation of Interconnected Sales

NEPA strictly prohibits agencies from breaking a single, larger set of impacts into smaller components to make the environmental footprint of each individual action appear minimal. Because the BLM Utah Quarter 2 and Quarter 3 lease offerings target a contiguous southeastern Utah landscape in the Moab Field Office area, they represent connected actions contrary to the purposes of the NTSA.  By analyzing these closely related, overlapping actions in isolated, piecemeal documents, the BLM has completely failed to assess the effects of these combined actions on the OSNHT landscape, viewshed, natural and cultural resources, and other public values, including recreational opportunities.

 o  The Multiplier Effect Due to Lack of a NTSA ROW including Width, and BLM Manual 6280 Trail Management Corridor

Because the BLM has already failed to establish a baseline ROW width or policy-based Trail Management Corridor, it has no viable way to calculate impacts to the OSNHT landscape. This creates a severe compounding defect when multiple sales are introduced:

Quarter 2 Impact: Introducing industrial infrastructure from the Quarter 2 sale causes severe localized impacts to the trail’s scenic values.

Quarter 3 Compounding Impact: Adding the adjacent Quarter 3 parcels creates a massive, continuous web of industrialization across the trail route.

By evaluating these sales independently, the BLM’s “hard look” completely misses the synergistic, landscape-scale degradation of the trail’s historic setting. Proceeding without an established baseline renders the BLM’s Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) a legal fiction and its NEPA analysis structurally deficient as a matter of law.

• The EA’s Supposed Inventory of Trail Resources and Values in the Proposed Project Area is Deficient. 

The abbreviated NHT inventory summarized in the EA falls considerably short of that required by BLM policy in Manual 6280 and associated Technical Guidance.  The summary inventories contained in the EA are brief and undeveloped in comparison to full scale, comprehensive inventories related to such Utah BLM actions as development of the Grand Staircase Escalante Resource Management Plan and the Upper Sevier Vegetation Enhancement Project.  Particularly lacking are any inventories of landscape features, natural resources, and the complete array of potential recreational opportunities.  The discussion of recreational opportunities relies only on the BLM OSNHT Recreational Development Strategy for Grand County – merely a conceptual, short-sighted “list” of some related, but mainly non-related recreational facilities existing in the County without broad scale public involvement or review.  That assessment of recreational opportunities is limited primarily to previously developed roadside pullouts along potential auto-tour routes many of which are on privately owned properties, and low priority off road vehicle uses.  Potential recreational assets related to vicarious enjoyment of undeveloped sections of the Trail corridor via off trail backcountry hiking and equestrian use, and potential development of retracement trails for such uses and potentially mountain biking use were not included in development of short-sighted strategy, without full public participation.

The inventory discussion also references various, but unspecified developments along the North Branch Route and North Route of the OSNHT that detract from the Trail corridor’s landscape and value as related to the OSNHT period of significance of 1829-1848, thus lessening the values of the Trail and its landscape, and negating the added impact of the lease sale.  However, there is no discussion of when said developments and activities on BLM land and authorized, or ignored, by the BLM were initiated.  If after the congressional establishment of the Trail in 2002, these activities and developments should have been closely scrutinized to ascertain that they did not substantially interfere with the Trail’s nature and purposes, but the EA provides no information regarding this matter.

Such comments in the BLM’s assessment impermissibly relies on a flawed “bootstrap” argument—a fundamental, recurring defect in Western public lands litigation. This occurs when an agency attempts to use past environmental degradation (often caused or permitted by its own oversight or lack of unauthorized permit enforcement) as a justification to lower the environmental baseline or claim that an area lacks sufficient resource value to merit future protection or restrictive management.

Federal courts across the Ninth and Tenth Circuits have repeatedly checked the BLM on how they establish an environmental baseline under NEPA and the APA, establishing clear boundaries regarding past agency inaction.

Under NEPA, an agency must establish an accurate environmental baseline to measure the potential impacts of a proposed action. Federal courts have explicitly ruled that an agency cannot treat ongoing, illegal, or unpermitted degradation as a permanent “given” to avoid looking at the true impacts of protecting a resource. If an agency allows unauthorized use (e.g., trespass grazing, unapproved off-highway vehicle [OHV] route proliferation, or incompletely assessed mining and mineral leasing allowances) to degrade a site, it cannot argue in a subsequent land use plan or environmental assessment that the site is too degraded to protect, thereby ignoring the “No Action” alternative or preservation options.

In Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) v. Jewell (9th Cir. 2016), the court reprimanded the BLM for miscalculating the baseline regarding a wind energy project on lands with wilderness characteristics. The court established that the BLM cannot bypass evaluating the impacts of an action by relying on inaccurate or artificially depressed baseline data regarding the actual condition of the land, especially when the agency has a duty to monitor those resources. – as with NT resources and values.

A closely related line of cases arises when the BLM argues that because an area is already impacted by unpermitted activities, formalizing or expanding those activities won’t cause “significant” new impacts. Courts view this as an evasion of NEPA’s mandate. In Western Watersheds Project v. Kraayenbrink (9th Cir. 2011), which targeted the BLM’s nationwide grazing regulations, the court similarly held that the BLM violated NEPA and its core statutory duties by failing to properly anchor its analysis against a lawful baseline.

The BLM cannot use its historical lack of enforcement, its failure to map the trail corridor, or existing unpermitted or improperly permitted degradation along the OSNHT alignments to artificially depress the landscape’s protection potential or mask the true landscape-scale degradation of this irreplaceable conservation lands asset.

Conclusion

In conclusion the parties submitting these comments urge the BLM, in regard to parcels 1805, 1806, 1809, 7935, 7937, 7941, and 7947 in the Moab Field Office Area to either: (1) reinstate and adopt the considered, but eliminated alternative for “Old Spanish National Historic Trail Avoidance” in regard to all referenced parcels; or (2) adopt the “No Action Alternative” in regard to the entire Qtr. 3 oil and gas lease sale proposal.  The EA fails to support any other alternative being adopted and doing so would clearly be a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act provisions at 5 U.S.C. §706 as:

• arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;
• in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right;
• without observance of procedure required by law.

Please consider each of the signatory parties to these comments to be interested parties regarding this proposed action and keep the parties informed of subsequent related actions.

Attachment

• Appendix A – Scoping Comments of April 15, 2026.

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  John Hiscock is a retired 38-year veteran of the National Park Service, having worked as a park ranger, regulatory specialist, superintendent, state coordinator, and leader of numerous management initiatives. He also served as Association Manager (retired) and is a life member of the Old Spanish Trail Association. He is also a member of PEER, CPANP, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and the Western Watersheds Project.