This week on The Wild Line, we’re tracking a proposed land exchange inside Yosemite, a halted data center on public land near Las Vegas, renewed lawsuits over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and the aftermath of a deadly flash flood in the Grand Canyon. From a historic salmon return at Mount St. Helens to a rollback of national park crowd control, these stories track how much protection is left for America’s public lands and waters. 

🎧 Listen to the full episode for context, analysis, and what to watch next.

Chinook Salmon Return to the Mount St. Helens Watershed After 46 Years

For the first time since the 1980 eruption, Chinook salmon are back in the volcano’s upper watershed. The Cowlitz Indian Tribe, conservation groups, and state and federal agencies gathered along Coldwater Creek to release 30 fish into ancestral spawning grounds, habitat only now recovered enough to support the largest Pacific salmon species. Fish can’t return on their own because of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Sediment Retention Structure on the North Fork Toutle River, completed in 1989. The plan calls for releasing about 300 fish annually, with hopes the run becomes self-sustaining within 20 years, though the Corps’ plan to raise the structure’s spillway 10 feet by October 2027, a $35.9 million project, remains contested by some advocates.

Yosemite Faces a Private Land Deal as Grand Canyon Reels From Deadly Flooding

America’s national parks made headlines on multiple fronts this week. The Trump administration is weighing an unprecedented land exchange that would hand a parcel inside Yosemite National Park to Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a Nevada-based real estate and investment firm; Interior says no final decision has been made, though the deal has reportedly been flagged internally as a priority. At the bottom of Grand Canyon National Park, a flash flood tore through Bright Angel Creek on August 29, killing at least two people, leaving one still missing, and prompting the airlift evacuation of roughly 82 hikers and campers from Phantom Ranch and Cottonwood Campground, both now closed indefinitely. Meanwhile, timed-entry reservation systems piloted at parks including Glacier and Yosemite have been scrapped this summer, and in Glacier, staffing cuts have dropped more than half the park’s shuttle stops even as time-limited parking takes their place. NPCA’s Mark Rose is featured discussing both the exchange and the crowding rollback.

Interior Board Halts First-Ever Data Center Approved on BLM Land

The Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled September 1 to temporarily block the Townsite Data Center near Boulder City, Nevada, the first data center approved on Bureau of Land Management land in the country, finding BLM likely violated NEPA by approving it without a fresh environmental review. Developer Townsite Solar 2 LLC won approval in 2023 for a solar and battery project on the 88.5-acre parcel, then sought an amended right-of-way in 2025 to build a data center instead; BLM signed off this July, calling the two projects “substantially the same,” a justification the board found arbitrary and capricious. The stay, sought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Boulder City, freezes construction while consolidated appeals proceed, with BLM ordered to respond by September 21.

Conservation Groups Take Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Back to Court

Conservation groups filed suit this week in U.S. District Court to reactivate litigation against President Trump’s 2017 monument rollbacks and challenge them alongside his July 2026 reductions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. Two additional coalitions of monument supporters filed their own renewed litigation the same week. The groups argue the Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to designate monuments but gives them no power to shrink monuments created by their predecessors. Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and Michael Toll, staff attorney at the Grand Canyon Trust, are both featured discussing the case.

Friends of the Show Headline a Climate Week Panel on Southern Appalachian Wildlife

Bill and Anders highlight a Climate Week panel in New York City exploring efforts to reconnect fish and wildlife habitat and protect Southern Appalachian biodiversity, including whether helping species like the hellbender salamander and elk can help people too. Panelists include Ben Prater, Southeast program director for Defenders of Wildlife; Jessica Roberts, PhD, principal associate for the Pew Charitable Trusts leading U.S. conservation for the Southern Appalachian region; Lindsey Liles, a journalist for Garden & Gun; Dalton George, mayor of Boone, North Carolina, and a past guest on the show; and Ramona McGee, wildlife program leader at the Southern Environmental Law Center. The panel takes place September 22 at 12:30 Eastern and can be attended virtually: Register here.

Next Week

That’s our report for September 4, 2026.

We’ll be back next week with more land stories that matter. Next Tuesday on The Wild Idea Podcast, we talk fighting for access rights to public lands and waters. 

Until then — Act Up and Run Wild.

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