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A slim majority of Utahns are opposed to expanding Canyonlands National Park, according to a new poll.

The survey released Tuesday by UtahPolicy.com concluded 56 percent of Utah voters polled do not want President Barack Obama to designate a Greater Canyonlands National Monument before he leaves office.

But environmentalists who have been pushing the idea for years say Utah Policy's poll is an outlier.

Mark Clemens, Utah Sierra Club chapter manager, said the nonpartisan website's poll runs counter to decades of polling about expanding Canyonlands.

"People vote with their feet — in their campers and their tents. They go to — and love — their public lands," Clemens said. "In general, Utahns are much more supportive of their federal lands than their elected officials."

Utah Policy's poll also found 54 percent of Utah residents would support filing a suit to take over Bureau of Land Management lands. Nearly two in three, 60 percent of Utahns, want the state to take control of the lands, and 53 percent said the state would be the best manager of those lands.

"Almost all other polls have shown results that are very different from this," Clemens said.

Utah Policy's poll follows anti-federal government protests near the Utah-Nevada border in support of rancher Cliven Bundy and at Recapture Canyon in San Juan County. During the 2012 Legislature, Utah lawmakers adopted a bill requiring the federal government to hand over title to 30 million acres of federal lands not included in national parks and wilderness areas.

Others questioned Utah Policy's results Tuesday.

Center for Western Priorities Director Jessica Goad said the poll is flawed because of the way the questions were asked.

A regional bipartisan poll completed last month for the Center for American Progress found that Utahns are the only Westerners in eight states who support the idea of taking over federal lands within their state's borders. At the same time, Goad said, when the cost of the anti-fed movement is factored in to poll questions, public support drops.

UtahPolicy's poll asked: "Do you support or oppose state government taking control of BLM lands?" Nearly two-thirds of respondents said "yes."

The regional poll, however, added this phrase: "Having your state government and Utah taxpayers assume full control of managing these public lands, including paying for all related costs, including the cost of preventing and fighting wildfires..."

With the question asked that way, Goad noted, just 52 percent of respondents support the idea.

"Once Utah voters are presented with the costs of managing national lands, they become highly skeptical of such efforts," Goad said. "If we're going to have an honest debate about this issue, proponents need to be far more transparent about the costs to taxpayers and how they intend to pay those costs without increasing taxes or selling off lands to the highest bidder."

Utah Policy Managing Editor Bryan Schott pushed back, calling the Center for Western Priorities an "activist group" with an agenda.

"Our poll was extremely neutral," he said. "We just asked a simple question; they put cost in it. Everyone knows any time you put cost in, naturally the support is going to go down. We just wanted to find out where Utahns are on the issue."

And, Schott pointed out, the regional poll still found a majority of Utahns support the idea of taking over federal lands, regardless of the cost.

The Center for American Progress poll questioned 1,600 voters, 200 in each of the states Sept. 10-14. Utah Policy surveyed 406 registered voters between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2.

UtahPolicy's polls are paid for by Zions Bank.