How do I submit a public comment on Babylon Post-Fire Recovery?

Submit your comment through the agency's official portal at https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?Project=438123. This page includes talking points and a starter comment you can make your own.

When is the public comment deadline for Babylon Post-Fire Recovery?

Comments are due by November 3, 2026. Comments received after the deadline may not be considered by the agency.

Do public comments actually change federal decisions?

Yes, when they are substantive. Agencies are legally required to read and respond to substantive comments before finalizing a rule, and specific personal comments about real places and real uses carry far more weight than identical form letters. Courts have overturned rules when agencies ignored substantive comments.

Babylon Fire recovery plan skips public objection rights on 95,160 Manti-La Sal acres

3 holes in the agency’s own analysis

Make these points, in your own words

The Forest Service is bypassing the normal pre-decisional objection process by authorizing the Babylon Post-Fire Recovery Project as an emergency action under the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which removes a key public check on this decision.
This project would carry out logging, road work, and other recovery activities across roughly 95,160 acres of the Manti-La Sal National Forest west of Monticello, UT, a massive footprint that deserves full NEPA review.
Skipping the standard objection process for a project affecting wildlife habitat, watersheds, and soil stability across 95,160 burned acres sets a troubling precedent for sidelining public oversight on large-scale National Forest actions.

Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.

PLAN's read: high threat

A language model's read of the agency's notice, not an agency rating and not an editor's finding. It’s read from the official notice ↗, and it isn’t a grade.

The Forest Service is bypassing the normal objection process for a 95,160-acre post-fire project west of Monticello.

What’s at risk

Public oversight of logging, roads, and other recovery activities across 95,160 burned acres west of Monticello is at risk. The emergency authorization under the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act removes the standard pre-decisional objection period that would otherwise let the public challenge decisions before they are final.

If this goes through

Recovery activities including logging and road work will proceed across the Babylon Fire area without the public having any formal right to object before the agency acts.

Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.

In the agency’s own words

The Manti-La Sal NF proposes implementing a suite of post fire recovery activities within approx. 95,160 acres of the 2026 Babylon Fire area west of Monticello, UT to accelerate recovery of forested cover, wildlife habitat, soil stability, hydrologic function, and natural scenery.

Forest Service project page ↗

The groups on this fight

4 groups predicted likely to care in Colorado and Utah

Predicted likely to care is a guess from the group's sourced work in Colorado and Utah, with no link to this decision. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.

Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah: The monument’s friends group: Science, stewardship, and the legal fight over its boundaries.
Rocky Mountain Wild
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Colorado BLM Lease Sale, Colorado: Joined the formal challenge to the January 2026 replacement lease sale and previously sued BLM over the Roan Plateau leases.
San Juan Citizens Alliance
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado: Shaped the 2010 management plan, has fought oil and gas leasing decisions inside the monument for two decades, mobilized against the 2017 monument review, and states it continues to defend CANM.
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Green River (Flaming Gorge to Colorado), Utah: Sued BLM in August 2024 to void 51 reaffirmed oil and gas leases in the San Rafael Desert, including one in the heart of the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness carved by the Green River.

Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.

Who signs it

The notice names no signer PLAN could read. PLAN names a decision-maker only when the document names one.

The ground

Manti-La Sal National Forest

The photograph on this page: Cutthroat trout, caught and released on a western river. It’s the country this decision sits in, not the site itself. More Than Just Parks.

Who holds the vote

PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.

See how your members vote ↗

Calling your two senators and your representative is the Call door on this page.

Forest ServiceWe track this on the agency’s own system of record, where most on-the-ground decisions live.

Filed underLogging Wildfire Wildlife Watershed Recreation Infrastructure Environmental review Roads

Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .

Babylon Fire recovery plan skips public objection rights on 95,160 Manti-La Sal acres

3 holes in the agency’s own analysis

In the agency’s own words

4 groups predicted likely to care in Colorado and Utah

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