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Grand County urges congressional delegation to protect local federal offices from proposed GSA lease closures
Summary
The commission approved a letter urging Senators and the Representative to remove local USGS, National Park Service and Farm Service Agency offices from a proposed GSA lease‑termination list, citing monitoring, research and river rescue functions.
Grand County commissioners unanimously approved a letter on April 15 asking the county's congressional delegation to remove several local federal offices from a GSA list of lease terminations. The letter asks representatives to advocate for keeping the USGS Water Science Center, the USGS Southwest Biological Center and the National Park Service Southeastern Utah office off the proposed closure list because of their local research, stream‑gauge monitoring and river‑rescue support functions.
Commissioners and staff emphasized the operational importance of the USGS stream gauges for flood monitoring on Mill and Pack Creeks and the Green and Colorado Rivers, and the National Park Service river shop’s role in river rescue and technical assistance for Canyonlands and other parks. The motion to send the letter to the two U.S. senators and the district’s U.S. representative passed unanimously.
Why it matters: Closure or relocation of these offices could hamper regional water monitoring, scientific research and park operations that support public safety and land management.
Details: The county referenced a March 3 GSA proposal to terminate roughly 800 leases nationally and noted that local pushback in other communities has led GSA to remove some entries from their list. Commissioners asked staff to finalize grammatical edits before transmission.
Next steps: The county will send the letter to the congressional delegation and continue local advocacy.
