SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah authorities are investigating reports of drinking water contaminated by E. coli linked to prairie dogs at an iconic Utah park, but said Tuesday that tests so far show the water is clean.

Bryce Canyon National Park saw 2.5 million visitors last year, and county leaders are alarmed about contamination reports linked to feces from prairie dogs near the well that supplies water to visitor facilities and cabins.

Park officials said contaminated samples came from untreated water. Treated water is safe, they said. State drinking water officials said they’re planning to review the system this week, but so far have seen no evidence of a problem in monthly drinking water tests.

“Bryce Canyon is in full compliance with everything they’ve done,” said Utah Department of Environmental Quality Division of Drinking Water director Marie Owens.

But local leaders aren’t convinced.

“This has been going on for a long time, and we’re not going to put up with that anymore,” said Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins.

The county commission passed a resolution Monday calling it an “immediate, direct and significant” public-health threat.

A park employee has shared results of more than a dozen tests over the last several years have shown the presence of E. coli, most recently last year, Perkins said.

It’s a bigger issue in high-water years when more debris enters the water supply, Perkins said. He said the park should get a new well or move the prairie dog colony.

The park constructed a fence last year and is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move the colony next month, National Park Service spokeswoman Vanessa Lacayo said.

The water is safe after being treated by a micro filter and chlorination, she said.

Utah prairie dogs are a threatened species, and federal endangered species protections for them have been a source of frustration for property owners who say the rules go too far and allow them to take over.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A 13-year-old girl fell to her death from a popular narrow trail bordered by steep drops at Zion National Park, officials said Tuesday.

The Utah girl was hiking with family when she tumbled from the Angel’s Landing Trail on Monday evening, park ranger John Marciano said. She was quickly discovered by hikers on the West Rim Trail below.

Angel’s Landing was closed Tuesday morning to investigate the fall from the path that ascends some 1,500 feet above the southern Utah park’s red-rock cliffs. There has been about one death each of the last two years on the trail, Marciano said.

The girl had done the hike before, and the trail was clear of ice and snow.

“It was just a beautiful day. It’s at time you wouldn’t expect anything to happen,” Marciano said.

It did not appear that anyone had witnessed the fall, he said. The girl’s name and hometown were not immediately released.

The iconic trail offers sweeping views of the red-rock park in southern Utah and has become especially popular among visitors inspired by social media posts. But it also comes with dire safety warnings about the danger of falls, Marciano said.

Anyone with young children or problems with heights is advised not to make the trek, he said.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Bureau of Land Management agent who has been scrutinized for past behavior took valuable stones held as evidence and handed them out “like candy” to colleagues and a contractor, federal investigators said in a report made public Thursday.

Daniel Love played a command role in an April 2014 standoff involving backers of Nevada rancher and states’ rights figure Cliven Bundy. It pitted weapon-toting Bundy supporters against heavily armed BLM agents who, in the end, gave up efforts to collect Bundy cattle for nonpayment of grazing fees.

Love was previously faulted for using his influence to get tickets to a sold-out Burning Man counterculture festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that he was helping oversee security for and manipulating a job search for a friend.

U.S. Department of Interior investigators also found Love told an employee to delete some emails that contained bureau information requested by then-U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz. Though the report does not name Love, Chaffetz confirmed Thursday that his request had been directed to Love. Chaffetz did not specify the nature of the request.

“We were deeply concerned he was manipulating the record. I’m glad they dove deep into this,” Chaffetz said. “It’s against the law to change the federal record, particularly when you’re motivated to protect your own rear.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah declined to file criminal charges related to evidence mishandling, said spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch, who declined comment about the decision. Megan Crandall, a land management bureau spokeswoman, said Thursday he remains an employee, but declined to elaborate.

A lawyer for Love, Lisa Kleine, did not immediately telephone message seeking comment. A publicly listed number for Love has been disconnected.

The report states that Love in the spring of 2016 told a federal employee to take seized stones known as moqui marbles out of an evidence room so he could give them to a contractor who had done work on the agency’s building in Salt Lake City. The rocks are unique geological formations of iron oxide that form in sedimentary rock.

The agency had thousands of rocks that were seized during an investigation into whether they had been collected illegally from an unnamed national park, and a professor estimated their retail value at $160,000 to $520,000.

They were stored in dozens of 5-gallon (19-liter) buckets, and Love told an employee to get him four of the best rocks for gifts.

The employee told investigators he had “bad feeling” about taking them from the evidence room, but followed instructions because Love was a law enforcement officer and “scary.” The contractor later returned the marbles.

Several other employees also had the stones, and one told investigators that Love was “giving them out like candy.”

The report found that Love told an employee eliminate the emails in February 2016. Love told an employee to search his email for anything that might be inappropriate or demeaning, and delete them or flag those emails so Love could review them.

During the investigation, Love refused to turn over his government-issued laptops, saying they’d been lost — something he previously told colleagues that he planned to do if he ever got in trouble, according to the investigative report. Love declined to be interviewed by investigators.

Love oversaw the Bundy cattle roundup in Nevada in 2014. He also led agents in a 2009 southern Utah artifact-looting investigation that marked an early skirmish in the Western U.S. conflict over control of public lands.

Love was sued for over the artifacts raid by family of a doctor, James Redd, who killed himself after he was arrested. That case was later dismissed.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah hunter trapped overnight in a blizzard dug himself into the snow to survive before searchers found him by spotting his rifles stuck into the ground, police said.

Trevor Valentine, 38, remained hospitalized in serious condition Friday after he tried to hike to a road when his pickup truck got stuck in the remote, mountainous area near the Idaho border, according to the Box Elder County Sheriff’s Office.

Buffeted by blowing snow and a wind-chill temperature that dipped to minus 25, he dug a small hole for himself and crawled inside.

The spot was nearly invisible by the time winds had died down enough for crews to search the area Thursday, sheriff’s Chief Deputy Dale Ward said.

“The snow had drifted over him,” he said. “The poor guy was frozen.”

Sharp-eyed search and rescue crews spotted his rifles stuck straight up in the ground and dug down to find him, Ward said.

Valentine was awake and spoke with searchers who tried to relieve symptoms of frostbite and hypothermia as a medical helicopter crew worked to land in the windy weather.

Valentine had gone hunting Wednesday west of Snowville and texted his wife that evening to say his truck was stuck.

He decided to hike three miles to a state road to meet her but never made it, so his family called police.

Search and rescue crews got to the area near Wildcat Mountain that night but were stymied by blizzard conditions and drifting snow. They started again at sunrise and found him a few hours later.

Valentine, who lives in nearby Weber County, seemed to know the area but may have been overtaken as fast-changing weather blanketed the area with snow, Ward said.

He was dressed for the cold, but wasn’t prepared for a night in temperatures that the National Weather Service said reached minus 4.