Zak Podmore

Report for America corps member

Zak is a Report for America corps member covering conflict and change in San Juan County for The Tribune. He has been writing from Bluff, Utah, since 2015 and is the author of Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political On Rivers of the New West from Torrey House Press.

(Francisco Kjolseth | Tribune file photo) The Bears Ears buttes in Bears Ears National Monument in San Juan County are seen in this April 24, 2019 file photo. Grand County's governing commission has joined neighboring San Juan County in supporting an expansion of the monument boundaries to their original size, as designated by former President Barack Obama before President Trump moved to shrink them.

Utah’s Grand County asks President-elect Joe Biden to restore Bears Ears monument borders

By Zak Podmore | January 22, 2021, 12:57 a.m.

(Evan Vucci | AP) President Joe Biden waits to sign his first executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington. An order starting the restoration of original boundaries to Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument were expected to be among the initial orders signed.

President Joe Biden starts process to restore Utah’s national monuments

By Brian Maffly | Zak Podmore | Taylor Stevens | January 22, 2021, 12:54 a.m.

(Leah Hogsten | Tribune file photo) Shelly Begay, a Diné medical assistant at Utah Navajo Health System’s Monument Valley Clinic, carries a patient’s coronavirus test kit out of the mobile triage unit for transport and testing on Aug., 24, 2020.

Navajo Nation leads COVID-19 vaccination in southern Utah, but limited doses slow rollout

By Zak Podmore | January 15, 2021, 10:48 p.m.

(Courtesy of the Ken Sleight Collection) Ken Sleight and Tim DeChristopher met while DeChristopher was being tried for protesting oil leases near Arches National Park in 2010.

New film chronicles environmental ‘outlaw’ Ken Sleight’s fight to restore Glen Canyon

By Zak Podmore | January 10, 2021, 8:48 p.m.

(Courtesy of Tomoyo Tamayama) Activists pose for a photo before their visit to a Japan Atomic Energy Agency site in southern Japan that plans to ship radioactive material to Utah for processing. Tomoyo Tamayama (below) researched the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation in two postgraduate programs.

Activists in Japan rally against plans to export radioactive material to Utah

By Zak Podmore | January 4, 2021, 1:00 p.m.

(Zak Podmore | The Salt Lake Tribune) Looking west from a parcel of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) that was recently leased to an oil and gas company in San Juan County. Four parcels that sold in an October lease sale overlapped with the original boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument, which President-elect Joe Biden has promised to restore. December 16, 2020.

Utah criticized for selling oil and gas leases in the original Bears Ears monument

By Zak Podmore | December 26, 2020, 1:00 p.m.

(Courtesy of Rep. John Curtis) Rep. John Curtis (right), R-Utah, shakes hands with an employee at Energy Fuels' White Mesa uranium mill in September 2019. Some $75 million for a reserve uranium was included in the massive spending bill passed by Congress this week.

Creation of new national uranium reserve could mean jobs in Utah, but is the environmental cost too high?

By Zak Podmore | December 23, 2020, 4:32 p.m.

(Leah Hogsten | Tribune file photo) Two young boys fill the family water tank at the Oljato-Monument Valley water spigot adjacent to the post office on June 22, 2020. The water well is one of a few locations in San Juan County where members of the Navajo Nation can get clean water. More than one-third of Navajo Nation households lack running water, and the problem is even worse in San Juan County where over 40% of Navajo Nation residents have to haul water. Families fill jugs at communal wells or buy bottled water from stores — both costly and time-consuming burdens that have become only more difficult during the pandemic and the tribe's daily and weekend curfews.

Long-awaited bill to settle Navajo Nation water rights in San Juan County passed by Congress

By Zak Podmore | December 23, 2020, 3:12 a.m.

(Zoom screen shot by Brian Maffly) Three of the Moab slackliners who removed the 'Utah monolith' from a remote canyon last month discuss the sculpture's fate with reporters on a Zoom call Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. Pictured, left to right, are Andy Lewis, Sylvan Christensen and Homer Manson. On Friday they delivered the monolith to the Bureau of Land Management's Moab field office.

What’s next for the Utah monolith after its ‘return’ to federal land managers?

By Zak Podmore | Brian Maffly | December 22, 2020, 2:01 a.m.

(Zak Podmore | The Salt Lake Tribune) The smokestacks on the Navajo Generating Station coming down on December 18, 2020.

The demolition of the largest coal-fired power plant in the Western US brings reflection, hope to the northern Navajo Nation

By Zak Podmore | December 19, 2020, 8:17 p.m.