Utah Finalizes Huge Land Deal With U.S.

A 1 million-acre land deal--the country’s largest since Alaska statehood in 1959--was finalized when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt handed over a $50-million check to Gov. Mike Leavitt. Leavitt accepted the check on behalf of the state’s school trust lands administration and its beneficiaries, Utah’s public school students. The school trust also will receive about $13 million in future coal revenues and 153,000 federally owned acres rich in natural resources. In exchange, the federal government gets a checkerboard of 376,739 acres owned by the school trust. Utah also agreed to give up mineral rights below another 454,000 acres and drop lawsuits challenging the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument created in 1996 without consulting state officials.