The future of outdoor recreation in Utah after the 2025 legislative session
Apr 16, 2025, 7:32 PM | Updated: 7:55 pm
Water rushes down Big Cottonwood Creek in Big Cottonwood Canyon as outdoor recreation officials call for attention to safety at a press conference on Friday, April 14, 2023. The officials encouraged people to stay away from the spring runoff water and use extreme caution with kids and animals when around water. (Scott G Winterton/Deseret News)
(Scott G Winterton/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s outdoors was the focus of several bills that were passed during the 2025 legislative session. Now that the session is over, it’s time to discuss how those bills may affect the future of outdoor recreation in the state.
State Rep. Doug Owens, D-Millcreek, joined a panel on Wednesday to discuss this very topic. Here’s an inside look at some of the highlights of that conversation.
Below is a partial transcript of this interview as well as the full podcast.
KSL NewsRadio edited the following transcript for brevity and clarity.
HOST RUSTY CANNON: What was done this session with regards to outdoor recreation?
GUEST REP. DOUG OWENS: I had a bill … it passed to identify 10 high-priority outdoor recreation projects for planning and development. Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, had another to provide a public process for identifying new campgrounds.
We’re not keeping pace with population growth in terms of how many camping sites and miles of trails we got. It’s getting harder to get outside, and we want to maintain that lifestyle.
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HOST TAYLOR MORGAN: What is your sense of potential impacts, positive or negative, on Utah’s outdoor recreation economy as a result of cuts in federal staffing and federal spending when it comes to Department of Interior, BLM, Utah’s national parks … Are we worried about impacts of limiting staffing or funding for those parts?
OWENS: Absolutely we’re worried about that. Some of those cuts have been really harmful.
One of the parks shut down. I think it was Arches (that) just shut down part of the park because they didn’t have the rangers. We got to be more strategic about where these cuts are happening, and they just reopened that fiery furnace.
And there’s been other issues as well. They’ve been long-standing … But really going back 20 years and more, the federal outdoor recreation resources have been kind of starved for resources. In one case, there’s a campground by Flaming Gorge that the Forest Service actually asked the state to come in and help manage because they didn’t have the resources.
Read more: Popular Arches hike set to reopen after staff shortages prompted temporary closure
MORGAN: Going forward, how do we balance the use of Utah’s lands in a way that will preserve them?
OWENS: I don’t necessarily think we need to be encouraging more people to move to Utah, but I think we got to keep it accessible for the people who are living here. So, I think we got to recognize those economics.
If we pay attention to the economics of outdoor recreation and how really it underpins the economy, I think it’ll help us make better decisions in those land management things. If we just assume that they have a higher economic value for some other use, I think we got to start paying more attention to the true value of outdoor recreation to our economy.
Listen to the podcast below for the full interview:
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