Brian Maffly

Two-thirds of Utah is public land managed by federal agencies. An abundance of public lands help make Utah a great place to live, with plenty of beautiful places to roam free of No Trespassing signs in every corner of Beehive State. Two-thirds of the…

A failed legal settlement keeps the door open for a proposed export terminal to handle coal, despite Bay Area cities’ bans. | May 17, 2023, 4:46 a.m. Remember that coal-exporting terminal proposed in Oakland, Calif., long mired in legal battles and…

A South Korean energy firm is proposing a massive solar development in Utah’s Beaver County, where it hopes to build and operate a sprawling complex of photovoltaic panels across nearly 4,300 acres. With a generating capacity of 600 megawatts, the…

Salt Lake City stuck with cleaning up Parleys Canyon shooting range run by private police association for 50 years. | May 12, 2023, 5:00 a.m. An estimated 160 million pounds of lead is shaped into bullets and pellets each year, representing 4% of all…

Suit alleges officials conspired to sabotage the tribe’s $47 million bid. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah’s Tabby Mountain provides scenic big game habitat in the western Uinta Basin, on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The Utah Department of…

SITLA to spend $300,000 to clean up shooting range at former Scout camp in the Tushars. (Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration) Lead contamination permeates shooting ranges at a former Boy Scout camp on state trust lands in Beaver…

Holding 324 mining claims, two companies announce plans to drill 25 exploratory wells at Harts Point. (Neal Clark | Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance) Harts Point, located northwest of Monticello just outside Bears Ears National Monument, is being…

In a major change to swan hunting in Utah, state wildlife officials propose banning the taking of trumpeter swans, a rare large-bodied cousin to tundra swans. Tundra swans would remain legal to shoot during Utah’s 73-day fall swan-hunting season.…

After the tough winter, the state has about 335,000 deer, well below the population target of 405,000. (Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) Wildlife officials fed thousands of mule deer this winter to help them survive northern Utah’s record…

The 750-home Wasatch Peak Ranch, featuring Utah’s first private ski area, has become a lightning rod for litigation, including ‘anti-SLAPP’ action. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Some Morgan County residents oppose Wasatch Peaks Ranch,…

MPLX, a midstream operator of pipelines and processing plants, agrees to $2 million in penalties and to upgrade its equipment and leak detection. (Brian Maffly | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Ironhorse gas processing plant, pictured in August 2022, is…

Record snowpack expected to put 14.5 million acre-feet of water into upper Colorado, lift drought-depleted reservoir from its record low. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Glen Canyon Dam, which impounds the Colorado River in Lake Powell, on…

Acquired by a group of wealthy anonymous investors in 2019, Utah’s only private, members-only ski area is under development on a large tract of mountainous terrain in Morgan County. The former Gailey Ranch is undergoing a profound transformation into…

Construction begins on 3.5-mile paved pathway that ties Vivian Park with Deer Creek as landowner heads to court (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Hundreds of trees have been removed from along the Provo River, pictured on Thursday, where UDOT is…

Utah’s Wasatch Peaks Ranch and its private ski area in Morgan County is a destination for “the 1% of the 1%.” (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Two ski lifts are now visible at Wasatch Peaks Ranch, an exclusive community and private ski…

Earth is already moving at the site of old slides in Wasatch Front neighborhoods. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Geologist Ben Erickson of the Utah Geological Survey adjusts the GPS equipment that monitors landslides at the Springhill Geologic…

Four-part ‘Horizon’ is being shot in southern Utah thanks to generous tax incentives to Oscar-winning actor (Bureau of Land Management) Officials inspect damage to public lands resulting from a major film production in the San Rafael Swell in…

While just a tiny piece of the larger BST puzzle, this land is a lynchpin for completing the trail through Davis County. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) After an 1,100-foot climb, the new Parley's Pointe segment of the Bonneville…

The freshly drilled well released an uncontrolled stream of gasses for several days. A freshly drilled oil and gas well in Grand County ruptured on Friday, releasing an uncontrolled stream of gasses into the environment over the weekend and blocking…

Grayeyes and Maryboy may have broke open meeting law, says audit, which leaves out context. | Updated: 10:11 p.m. Two former San Juan County commissioners were faulted in a new Utah legislative audit that concluded the two tribal members’ reliance on…