The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with oversight over 247.3 million acres (1,001,000 km2), it governs one eighth of the country's landmass.
Rifle is a home rule municipality in and the most populous community of Garfield County, Colorado, United States. The population was 10,437 at the 2020 census. Rifle is a regional center of the cattle ranching industry located along Interstate 70 and the Colorado River just east of the Roan Plateau, which dominates the western skyline of the town. The town was founded in 1882 by Abram Maxfield, and was incorporated in 1905 along Rifle Creek, near its mouth on the Colorado. The community takes its name from the creek.
The City of Fruita is a home rule municipality located in western Mesa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 13,395 at the 2020 United States Census. Fruita is a part of the Grand Junction, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and lies within the Grand Valley. The geography is identified by the bordering Colorado River on the southern edge of town, the Uncompahgre Plateau known for its pinyon-juniper landscape, and the Book Cliffs range on the northern edge of the Grand Valley. Originally home to the Ute people, white farmers settled the town after founder William Pabor in 1884. Ten years later, Fruita was incorporated.
Grand Junction is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 65,560 at the 2020 United States Census, making Grand Junction the 17th most populous Colorado municipality and the most populous city in western Colorado.
The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The Grand Valley is an extended populated valley, approximately 30 miles (48 km) long and 5 miles (8.0 km) wide, located along the Colorado River in Mesa County in western Colorado and Grand County in eastern Utah in the Western United States. The valley contains the city of Grand Junction, as well as other smaller communities such as Fruita and Palisade. The valley is a major fruit-growing region that contains many orchards and vineyards, and is home to one of two designated American Viticultural Areas in Colorado: the Grand Valley AVA. It takes its name from the "Grand River", the historical name of the Colorado River upstream from its confluence with the Green River that was used by locals in the late 19th and early 20th century. The valley is the most densely populated area on the Colorado Western Slope, with Grand Junction serving as an unofficial capital of the region, as a counterpoint to Denver on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in the Colorado Front Range. Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 6 run through the valley from west-to-east. The Grand Valley is part of the larger Colorado Plateau desert lands.
The Roan Cliffs are a series of desert mountains and cliffs in eastern Utah and western Colorado, in the western United States that are distinct from the Book Cliffs.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 30 U.S.C. § 181 et seq. is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs leasing of public lands for developing deposits of coal, petroleum, natural gas and other hydrocarbons, in addition to phosphates, sodium, sulfur, and potassium in the United States. Previous to the act, these materials were subject to mining claims under the General Mining Act of 1872.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a national monument protecting an archaeologically significant landscape located in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The monument's 176,056 acres (71,247 ha) are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, as directed in the presidential proclamation which created the site on June 9, 2000. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is part of the National Landscape Conservation System, better known as the National Conservation Lands. This system comprises 32 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management to conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes recognized for their outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values. Canyons of the Ancients encompasses and surrounds three of the four separate sections of Hovenweep National Monument, which is administered by the National Park Service. The monument was proclaimed in order to preserve the largest concentration of archaeological sites in the United States, primarily Ancestral Puebloan ruins. As of 2022, over 8,500 individual archeological sites had been documented within the monument.
The geography of the U.S. State of Colorado is diverse, encompassing both rugged mountainous terrain, vast plains, desert lands, desert canyons, and mesas. Colorado is a landlocked U.S. state. In 1861, the United States Congress defined the boundaries of the new Territory of Colorado exclusively by lines of latitude and longitude, stretching from 37°N to 41°N latitude, and from 102°02'48"W to 109°02'48"W longitude. Starting in 1868, official surveys demarcated the boundaries, deviating from the parallels and meridians in several places. Later surveys attempted to correct some of these mistakes but in 1925 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the earlier demarcation was the official boundary. The borders of Colorado are now officially defined by 697 boundary markers connected by straight boundary lines. Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah are the only states that have their borders defined solely by straight boundary lines with no natural features. The southwest corner of Colorado is the Four Corners Monument at 36°59'56"N, 109°2'43"W. This is the only place in the United States where four states meet: Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.
The McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (MCNCA) is a 123,400-acre (499 km2) National Conservation Area located in Mesa County, west of Grand Junction, Colorado. The MCNCA has rugged sandstone canyons, natural arches, spires, and alcoves carved into the Colorado Plateau, through which runs a 24-mile (39 km) stretch of the Colorado River. Included in the MCNCA is the 75,500-acre (306 km2) Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness (BRCW) with 5,200 acres (21 km2) extending into eastern Grand County, Utah at the MCNCA's western boundary.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) is an area of land on the Alaska North Slope owned by the United States federal government and managed by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It lies to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which, as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managed National Wildlife Refuge, is also federal land.
The Kokopelli's Trail is a 142-mile (229 km) multi-use trail in Grand County, Utah and Mesa County, Colorado in the western United States. The trail was named in honor of its mythic muse, Kokopelli. The trail was created by the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association (COPMOBA) in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) in 1989.
Otero Mesa is a plateau in the Trans-Pecos. The plateau extends north from Hudspeth County, Texas into Otero County, New Mexico. Otero Mesa is the dominant landform in Hudspeth County, composing 70% of its land area. Otero Mesa has a more limited extant in Otero County, NM. Overall, 2/3 of Otero Mesa are in Texas, but the colloquial usage of "Otero Mesa" is restricted to the component of the plateau in New Mexico. This is only a political distinction; Otero Mesa is physiographically continuous across the NM-TX state line.
The Mountain states form one of the nine geographic divisions of the United States that are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau. It is a subregion of the Western United States.
Needle Rock Natural Area is located at the western edge of the West Elk Mountains of Colorado. The surrounding terrain is characterized by laccolithic mountains flanked by precipitous cliffs, extensive talus aprons, forested mesas, canyons, and spacious, well-watered intermontane basins. Needle Rock is an intrusive plug of monzonite porphyry cropping out 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east-northeast of the Town of Crawford in Delta County, Colorado, United States. At an elevation of 7,797 feet (2,377 m), the towering rock spire stands 800 feet (240 m) tall above the floor of the Smith Fork of the Gunnison River valley. The massive rock feature originated in the Oligocene geological epoch when magma intruded between existing sedimentary rocks as the crown of a buried laccolith or possibly the underlying conduit of a laccolith. Subsequent erosion has exposed the prominent rock formation seen in the natural area today.
The Dominguez–Escalante National Conservation Area is a 209,610-acre (848.3 km2) National Conservation Area located in western Colorado southeast of Grand Junction and northwest of Montrose. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and was created as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. In 2009 66,280 acres (26,820 ha) were also designated as the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness.
The Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act is a bill that would require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to establish certain fees for activities related to the development of oil and gas on federal lands. A portion of those amounts along with a portion of fees from renewable energy projects on federal lands would be available to the agency, subject to appropriation, to cover the costs of activities aimed at increasing energy development on federal lands. The bill also would exempt lawsuits related to energy production on federal lands from the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). In addition, the legislation would require the BLM to offer for sale at least 25 percent of onshore federal lands nominated by firms for oil and gas leasing. It was introduced in the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. President Barack Obama threatened to veto the bill on November 19, 2013.
The Lowering Gasoline Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act of 2014 is a bill that would revise existing laws and policies regarding the development of oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. The bill is intended to increase domestic energy production and lower gas prices.
The Pine Gulch Fire was a wildfire that burned in Mesa County and Garfield County, Colorado in the United States. The fire was started by a lightning strike and first reported on July 31, 2020 and quickly grew, resulting in the fire being named the largest wildfire in Colorado history, surpassing the 2002 Hayman Fire. Almost seven weeks later, it was surpassed by the Cameron Peak Fire in Larimer County.
