Brian Maffly
Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake City, UT, United States
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Recent articles by Brian:
Dogs help wildlife officials track down and kill a black bear after it injured a boy in a Utah campsite
Utah wildlife officials have killed a black bear that injured a boy in Hobble Creek Canyon east of Springville early Tuesday after it entered a campsite and disturbed a tent where the youngster was sleeping. → Read More
Trump could revive Utah’s uranium mines any day now, but activists worry about the industry’s toxic legacy
A decision expected from the Trump White House in coming weeks could have far-reaching consequences for Utah’s uranium mining industry, which has been largely dormant in the face of competition from overseas producers. → Read More
Oil drilling comes to Utah wildlife refuge. Will rules keep birds, plants and fish safe?
A Dallas energy company expects to recover 400,000 barrels of oil from two wells it proposes to drill inside eastern Utah’s Ouray National Wildlife Refuge but only after agreeing to onerous concessions to avoid disturbing habitat used by migratory birds and threatened species of plants and fish. → Read More
Forest Service unveils plan for Utah’s largest logging project in years to clear out beetle-ravaged trees
The beetle-devastated spruce stands of Utah’s Wasatch Plateau will get an extreme makeover under a 15-year plan developed by the U.S. Forest Service that is expected to result in the largest logging project the state has seen in years. → Read More
'No longer a Gestapo’ — retiring head of Utah’s Natural Resources reflects on how he turned combative agencies into cooperative ones
For years, Mike Styler has run a 400-acre farm near Delta where he learned just how much water can disappear as it travels through an unlined irrigation ditch. → Read More
Utah coal-cleaning plant leaves behind trail of waste and unpaid debts
In 2013, a prominent coal-industry investor named Steven Rickmeier co-founded a company to acquire several coal-cleaning plants, including one at Wellington in the heart of Utah coal country. → Read More
Off-roaders are revved up to see southern Utah’s Factory Butte reopened to motorized use. But environmentalists are gearing up for a fight.
Just in time for the busy Memorial Day weekend, off-roaders may return to the public lands encircling southern Utah’s Factory Butte, otherworldly badlands that have been closed to cross-country motorized use since 2006 to protect two endangered cactus species. → Read More
Utah’s Mighty 5 campaign proved mighty successful, new study shows, but Zion and Bryce weren’t biggest beneficiaries
Wilshire Boulevard is among Los Angeles’ busiest streets, traveled by millions in cars, on foot and on bikes. For two months in 2013, a composite image showing several iconic Utah landforms — think Delicate Arch and the Great White Throne — soared above the equally iconic street connecting Beverly Hills with L.A.’s commercial districts. → Read More
BYU researchers studying canyon runoff in wake of Utah megafires
Payson • Peteetneet Creek, which tumbles down Utah’s Payson Canyon, is carrying a lot more than just water this spring. At times, it looks like a roiling mixture of Hershey’s chocolate powder and milk, with woody debris thrown in, according to ecological researcher Ben Abbott. → Read More
Pipeline closure will force southern Utah company to flare its natural gas, costing it revenue and polluting the air
Across Utah, many oil wells produce natural gas that can’t get to market because the infrastructure is not in place to gather it. This so-called “residue” gas is often flared or vented into the atmosphere, thus wasting a valuable resource, erasing tax revenue for rural areas and polluting the air. → Read More
Feds stack Bears Ears advisory group with critics of southern Utah monument
More than a year after President Donald Trump slashed southern Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, the Interior Department has publicly identified the 15 people it selected for the advisory committee that will provide guidance on managing the 200,000-acre reserve in San Juan County. → Read More
Mating condors return to Zion, but will they give wing to the park’s first chick?
Rock climbers, move over. → Read More
'I can’t let myself be cowed’ — Eco-activist Rose Chilcoat sues San Juan County, rancher over cattle-gate dispute
Alleging San Juan County trumped up bogus felony offenses over a gate closing, environmental activist Rose Chilcoat is now fighting back with a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking punitive damages from the southeastern Utah county that is already financially stretched over other legal tussles. → Read More
As snow keeps coming and water riches keep rising, Utah flood fears keep growing
Spring has barely begun, but water is thundering out of the Wasatch Mountains’ reservoirs as dam operators clear room to receive the liquid assets stored in a snowpack that is up to twice its normal size. → Read More
What did Utah win in the expansive lands bill? A new Jurassic park and a bigger, and hopefully better, Goblin Valley.
In a remote dusty corner of Utah’s San Rafael Swell is a spot where dinosaurs came to die 150 million years ago, their bones piling up in what may have been a seasonal pond. Or perhaps floodwaters deposited hundreds of carcasses there in what is now the world’s densest assemblage of dino bones. → Read More
Utah coal country’s push for a West Coast deep-water port resurfaces as Senate panel advances funding plan
One way or another, $53 million of Utahns’ money soon may get sunk into a deep-water export terminal on the West Coast in an effort to shore up the state’s fading coal industry. → Read More
Contest offer: Pay $10 for a chance to go elk hunting in Utah with Trump Jr.
In a bid to raise money to promote hunting rights and the removal of protection for predator species, a new group co-founded by Utahn Don Peay is selling $10 tickets for a chance to spend five days with Donald Trump Jr. on a guided elk hunt in Utah. → Read More
Utahns flock to Great Salt Lake to see birds aplenty at Gullstravaganza
Utah bird enthusiasts gathered at Farmington Bay on Saturday morning to watch thousands California gulls prancing in and over the shallow salty waters of the Great Salt Lake. → Read More
Judge rules that Grayeyes does indeed live in Utah, affirms Navajo Dem’s spot on San Juan County Commission
Nearly 40 years ago, newly sworn-in San Juan County Commissioner Willie Grayeyes and his late wife bought a mobile home in Page, Ariz., where the Navajo couple’s four children could live while they pursued the education that was unavailable at the time on reservation lands in Utah. → Read More
Road dispute shuts access to Native American treasures in Hovenweep, Canyons of the Ancients
A dispute with a new property owner has prompted federal land managers to cut off road access to archaeological sites in Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients national monuments just across the Utah line in Colorado. → Read More