|
|
| Latest News Services Circuits Contact Us Archives Subscribe Search |
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COLORADO BLM AGAIN AUCTIONS POTENTIAL WILDERNESS FOR OIL & GAS, DESPITE PROTESTS FROM CONGRESS AND CITIZENS Western Colorado’s South Shale Ridge Next in Line? DENVER, CO, August 13, 2004 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- Despite protests from citizens groups and 82 members of Congress, the Bureau of Land Management Thursday auctioned off for oil and gas development 9,250 acres of potential wilderness in the Delores River Canyons and in the Palisade area south of Grand Junction. The citizens groups and members of Congress assert that opening the areas to development will mar the land’s wilderness characteristics and reduce their chances for protection. The western Colorado lands in question are the Dolores River Canyons (a pristine desert area containing some of Colorado’s most outstanding canyon scenery), Maverick Canyon (a labyrinth of deep slick rock canyons and contoured bench lands located in Mesa County along the east side of the Dolores River), and Sagebrush Pillows, located in Mesa County, five miles northwest of Gateway along the Colorado-Utah state line. (Sagebrush Pillows gets its name from its two large expanses of sagebrush that, because they are divided by a drainage, appear as two large pillows in an undulating, semi-desert landscape of sage shrublands and pinyon-juniper woodlands.) All three areas are included in the Citizens’ Wilderness Proposal that was presented by Congresswoman Diana DeGette to the BLM in September 2001. Earlier this week, six citizens’ groups formally protested the inclusion of the disputed areas in today’s auction, arguing that BLM had not adequately considered new and detailed information about the areas’ natural values. (Although the disputed parcels were offered for sale August 12, they will not be issued to the purchaser until and unless the protest is resolved.) “In the past year, this is the third time that the BLM has auctioned off Colorado’s dwindling potential wilderness, despite growing opposition from citizens and Congress,” said The Wilderness Society’s Steve Smith. “With more than 90 percent of the federally managed gas in northwest Colorado already available for leasing, it’s extraordinarily short-sighted to let industrial activity destroy our last top-notch natural areas.” “What is really incredible,” Smith said, “is that these leases sold today at for between $2 and $21 per acre. Clearly, these lands are more valuable as wilderness than they are as gas fields.” The groups’ protest echoed a letter submitted to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton this week in which 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked her not to issue oil and gas leases on Utah and Colorado lands proposed for wilderness protection in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act and Colorado Wilderness Act. The letter asks Norton to exercise her “authority as the nation’s chief land steward to direct the BLM not to issue leases which have been challenged by the public and that contain lands proposed for wilderness designation….” The protest and the Congressional letter represent a growing legion of critics who have accused the BLM of targeting wilderness-quality lands for oil and gas leasing. Recent BLM lease sales in Colorado and Utah broke with tradition by including parcels of wilderness-quality lands, a direct result of a secret deal cut in April 2003 between Norton and former Utah Governor (now EPA Administrator) Mike Leavitt that prohibited BLM from protecting future wilderness. The agency’s May sale in Colorado included 26 parcels in areas proposed for protection as wilderness, as well as three in roadless areas in the White River National Forest. Those leases were also protested by citizen groups and by county officials. The citizens groups’ argument was bolstered by supplemental information they submitted to BLM yesterday based on an August 10 decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The groups assert that the decision (in Pennaco Energy v. United States Dept of the Interior & Wyoming Outdoor Council , No 03-8062) gives BLM additional guidance for a more thorough level of pre-leasing analysis. “It’s bad enough that the BLM ignored the thousands of hours that Colorado citizens have spent documenting that these areas deserve to be considered for wilderness protection,” said Pete Kolbenschlag, Western Slope Field Director for Colorado Environmental Coalition. “It’s clear that the Tenth Circuit says that the BLM should conduct a higher level of research and analysis before the agency makes management decisions—like oil and gas leasing—that could permanently harm these fabulous places.” An April 2004 report issued by The Wilderness Society showed that 70% of the federal public lands already leased in Colorado for oil and gas development are not in production and that only 19,000 of 25,000 wells permitted in five western states have been drilled. “As Colorado’s population continues to skyrocket, we need to make cautious, well-informed decisions about the environment,” said Vera Smith, Conservation Director for Colorado Mountain Club. “Instead, the administration is intentionally selling off our last wild places, to the detriment of all the individuals and businesses that value and depend on places like these.” According to Smith, the next stunning, wild Colorado landscape that BLM proposes to lease for oil and gas development is already in the queue. Today was also the deadline for comments on the BLM’s proposal to lease Western Colorado’s South Shale Ridge, also part of the citizens’ proposal for Colorado wilderness. CONTACT: Steve Smith, The Wilderness Society, (303) 650-5818 x106 Vera Smith, Colorado Mountain Club, (303) 996-2746 Pete Kolbenschlag, Colorado Environmental Coalition, (970) 261-0678
|