Brian Maffly

Public lands and environment reporter

Brian Maffly has worked for The Tribune off and on since 1994. Maffly roams Utah, covering public land and environment.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Jordan River meets Utah Lake in Saratoga Springs on Tuesday, March 1, 2022.

Polling shows strong support for Utah Lake dredging, but critics say the survey is biased

By Brian Maffly | August 9, 2022, 4:02 p.m.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Families begin their hike to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. The Forest Service is floating the possibility of enacting fees at trailheads, while reducing fees for some picnic areas. Fees could be at different places around the Uintah-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.

Pay to play is coming to Wasatch trails, including Big and Little Cottonwood canyons

By Brian Maffly | August 8, 2022, 3:37 p.m.

$(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The site of a proposed quarry near Vernal, just west of Dinosaur National Monument, on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021, where the Playa Sand Project would produce sand for use in fracking operations in the Uinta Basin.$

Proposed quarry looks to mine fracking sand near Dinosaur

By Brian Maffly | August 1, 2022, 6:10 p.m.

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) The area in Parleys Canyon where Granite Construction is proposing to excavate a limestone quarry, Wednesday, July 27, 2022. The mine would open a massive pit under Grandeur Peak, drawing massive push back from Salt Lake County officials and nearby property owners.

Parleys Canyon mine tests the limits of authority of Utah’s mining division

By Brian Maffly | July 29, 2022, 4:09 p.m.

(Otto De Groff) Bristlecone pines in Utah’s Johns Valley north of Bryce Canyon National Park, like this one photographed May 26, 2022, are beginning to die from bark beetle attacks. A new study by the U.S. Forest Service has documented the first known instances of beetle-induced mortality among Great Basin bristlecones, the Earth’s most long-lived organism.

What is killing the West’s notoriously resilient bristlecone pines?

By Brian Maffly | July 29, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

(Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining) A cleanup crew mops up some of the 400 barrels of crude oil that leaked from an oil field outside Escalante in Utah's Dixie National Forest last fall. Discovered Oct. 29, 2021, the leak from a corroded pipeline operated by Citation Oil and Gas Corp. left a 1.37-mile stream of crude into Pet Hollow in the headwaters of the Escalante River.

A Utah oil field spilled 400 barrels near Grand Staircase last fall — and it’s still cleaning up the crude

By Brian Maffly | July 21, 2022, 8:46 p.m.

(The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah's Bonanza Power Plant. The plant's operator Deseret Power acquired an 11,000-acre-foot water right from oil shale developers in a deal that environmentalists say is a shady scheme to keep the right from expiring.

Why did Utah oil shale developers give away priceless water rights?

By Brian Maffly | July 19, 2022, 1:00 p.m.

Kim Raff | The Salt Lake Tribune
Oil tankers use U.S. Highway 40 near Daniels Summit to travel from the oil fields in the Uinta Basin to Salt Lake refineries on May 18, 2012. A controversial railroad that would connect the basin's production with the national rail network has won federal approvals.

Uinta Basin Railway on track after Utah judge approves state grants for railroad funding

By Brian Maffly | July 16, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jenifer Tringham sits within the trunk of Soldier Hollow's black willow, locally nicknamed the Woman Tree, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Utah State Parks plans to remove 10 ancient black willow trees at Soldier Hollow because they pose a danger to the park's new campground, whose site was chosen because of its proximity to trees.

Why is State Parks razing Soldier Hollow’s historic willows?

By Brian Maffly | July 11, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Since 2014, the Price River Terminal in Wellington, pictured on Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, has received Uinta Basin crude by truck and loaded it onto rail cars bound for out-of-state markets. A proposed 85-mile oil-hauling railroad into the basin has won final approval, drawing lawsuits from environmental groups and a Colorado county.

Utah’s proposed oil railroad clears final regulatory hurdle

By Brian Maffly | July 15, 2022, 9:00 p.m.