CHEYENNE — The BLM offices in Cheyenne and Salt Lake City say they will defer leasing oil and gas lands bordering on national parks in Utah and near the Flaming Gorge recreation area in Wyoming.

Proposed offering of the parcels for lease drew heavy protest from hunters, environmentalists and in Utah, from the National Park Service.

Thirty parcels in Wyoming are being deferred. Thirteen of them, more than 16,000 acres, are located in the Little Mountain area south of Rock Springs, and are “being deferred until a determination is made regarding the merits of the protests received on these parcels” according to a BLM release.

The remaining 17 parcels, located in Lincoln County, are being deferred to “ensure stipulations in the Record of Decision for the Kemmerer Resource Management Plan.”

There are 184 parcels encompassing 197,275.759 acres that are unencumbered by protests will be offered in a competitive lease sale today in Cheyenne.

The parcels in Utah include about 38,000 acres on or near the boundaries of Arches National Park, Dinosaur National Monument or within sight of Canyonlands National Park.

The proposed lease areas were announced on Election Day, and the lease sale was set for Dec. 19 – giving the National Park Service much less time than the usual three months to comment. NPS asked the BLM in Utah to pull the sensitive parcels from the auction for further study, but the request was initially refused. If the parcels were sold and then delivered to buyers before Inauguration Day, it would be difficult for the new administration to reverse the sale.

According to the New York Times, David Nimkin, the southwest regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, said, “It’s very clear that there’s a time clock, and they are anxious to move these out for sale, for obvious reasons.”

However, this morning the BLM office in Utah sent out a press release crediting “two days of extremely productive discussions with the National Park Service” for deferring all parcels of concern from the sale. The BLM and NPS also revived a memorandum of understanding between them regarding how the two agencies will work together on prospective oil and gas leases.