Eastern Utah's Nine Mile Canyon, resting place to thousands of ancient Anasazi relics and rock-art panels, will escape -- at least for now -- a federal plan to vastly expand oil and gas drilling.

Late Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management pulled back proposed lease sites from a sale scheduled for later this month. The agency deferred leases on parcels below the rim of the West Tavaputs Plateau in Nine Mile Canyon, in the Desolation Canyon area and on underground coal fields near Price.

The move came after an outcry from conservationists, the National Park Service, members of Congress and the head of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, who said the lease sale should be halted or altered to accommodate environmental concerns.

"It was a very wise decision," said Pam Miller, chairwoman of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition. The canyon parcels "should never have been on the gas-lease sale in the first place.

"The coalition is very grateful," she added. "Hopefully [the BLM] will include the public and make more information available if they ever decide to consider these again."

Parcels on the coal fields have been canceled permanently because underground mining takes precedence over oil and gas drilling, explained Mary Wilson, spokeswoman for Utah's BLM office.

The original lease list covered more than 360,000 acres in Utah. Now it's down to 276,000 acres. However, although many parcels have been deferred, that doesn't mean they never could be leased. The BLM holds lease sales every quarter. The next one is scheduled for March 24 after the Obama administration takes over.

This month's sale, scheduled for Dec. 19 -- the Friday before Christmas -- was announced on Election Day. But it took three more days for the BLM to post maps that the public could inspect to figure out where the leases were.

Outrage ensued.

The National Park Service discovered that many parcels near parks in Utah it thought had been deferred were back on the list and complained the BLM had ignored a long-standing practice of notifying its sister Interior Department agency well in advance of a sale date.

The Park Service objected to more than 90 leases covering 130,000-plus acres on the boundaries of Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. The BLM agreed to defer 22 of the most sensitive parcels near the parks -- including some within view of Delicate Arch -- but kept the rest on the sale list.

Though the deferrals offer temporary respite, sensitive public lands, including some around the White River and near Canyonlands, remain imperiled, said Steve Bloch, attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The Nine Mile deferrals do not affect Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp.'s proposal to drill more than 900 natural-gas wells atop the West Tavaputs Plateau. The industrial big-rig traffic on the narrow, steep graveled canyon road would continue to churn dust that conservationists say will destroy some of the West's most stunning ancient American Indian rock art and degrade the region's air quality.

The BLM must finalize its lease sale list by Dec. 12, a week before the auction. The protest period deadline is Thursday, leaving the agency only a few days to resolve the many protests expected.

Wilson said the BLM might defer more parcels after further review, but must ensure an "appropriate amount of accessibility to energy resources necessary for the nation's security, while recognizing that special and unique nonenergy resources can be preserved."

phenetz@sltrib.com