SALT LAKE CITY—The Utah Division of Oil, Gas, & Mining has refused a request from the Pearl Montana Exploration company to drill for oil near Robert Smithson's earthwork sculpture Spiral Jetty, constructed in 1970. In a letter from the State of Utah's Department of Natural Resources to the company, obtained by the community group the Friends of Great Salt Lake, it states inadequacies in the application and notes, "The prospect of drilling in the lake requires more than the usual attention to the sensitivities of the site."

The letter also notifies the Pearl Montana Exploration company that they have the option of re-filing the application for a permit to drill at a later date, hinting that the fight over drilling near Smithson's well-known work is far from over. The Pearl Montana Exploration company had requested a permit to drill on January 7, 2008, after which the Friends of Great Salt Lake had asked for an extension until February 13, 2008, for comments from the public. The Friends and other conservation organizations also successfully stopped additional development of gas and oil leases on 116,000 acres in 2006.