A Canadian mining company has acquired rights to mine within original boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument/Colter Hoyt

A hard rock mine that shut down when President Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah in 1996 could soon be back in operation, as President Trump's realignment of the monument places the mine outside its boundaries and a Canadian-based mining company has purchased the rights to it.

The Colt Mesa mine has deposits of copper and cobalt, along with zinc, nickel, and molybdenum. Glacier Lake Resources, Inc., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, earlier this month announced that it had acquired the property that is not far from Boulder, Utah.

"The Colt Mesa acquisition broadens our focus on sedimentary hosted copper deposits, with a significant bonus of cobalt and nickel mineralization indicated. There is strong investor interest in the 'Battery Metals' sector, including cobalt, nickel and copper," said Saf Dhillon, president and chief executive officer. "Surface exploration work will start this summer on the Colt Mesa property and drill permitting will be initiated shortly.”

But whether President Trump's revised boundaries for the national monument hold up in court remains to be seen, and outside groups already are lining up to challenge Glacier Lake's move.

The Conservation Lands Foundation, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, and Society for Vertebrate Paleontology have announced they’re evaluating any and all remedies to stop the mine from resuming operations. According to the three, the area "supports a delicate desert ecosystem and a landscape enclosed in cliff walls, rich in Triassic era fossil deposits, which is unique and was included in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to protect it from disturbance by mining."

“Colt Mesa should be off limits for mining. As far as we and legal scholars are concerned, this land is still part of the national monument until the legal challenge to President Trump’s proclamation last December removing nearly a million acres is decided,” said Nicole Croft, executive director of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. “Glacier Lake Resources claim is on land that was acquired by Congress from the State of Utah in 1998 for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Utah traded the land for thousands of acres of valuable mineral lands elsewhere in the state as well as a sum of $50 million. It’s pure industrial greed at the expense of our community’s economic and cultural heritage.”

Brian Sybert, executive director of Conservation Lands Foundation, added that,"(I)t appears that the Department of Interior is focused on exploitation of national public lands without regard to the fundamental underlying and unresolved questions concerning the legality of the Trump proclamation, which is now before the court. Expediting damaging actions on sensitive lands that were in the monument appears to be a tactic by the administration to make an 'end run' around the judicial process.”

The Conservation Lands Foundation, Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners, and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology filed suit in federal court in December to overturn President Trump’s proclamation dismantling Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and carving it into small pieces representing about half of the area protected by the original, 21-year-old national monument.