Energy Development

Under the National Energy Plan (NEP), tens of thousands of new coalbed methane and other gas wells are proposed for the public lands of the Rocky Mountain states. The NEP would streamline environmental processes, expediting and fast-tracking approvals of mineral exploration and development from federal lands in the region. Most of these public lands are of special ecological, cultural, or recreational significance. The goal of the Energy Development Project is to protect federal lands against irresponsible energy development.

WRA Ensures Public Participation in the Face of Oil and Gas Development in Great Salt Lake

On behalf of Friends of Great Salt Lake and others, WRA brokered a settlement resolving a challenge to the leasing of 178,000 acres of the bed of Great Salt Lake for oil and gas development. Under the agreement, the vast majority of the parcels were withdrawn from leasing until the Division of State Lands revises its Great Salt Lake Mineral Leasing Plan. To decide whether to lease or not, State Lands will have to balance the protection of navigation, fish and wildlife habitat, aquatic beauty, public recreation, and water quality against the economic necessity or justification for the oil and gas development.

WRA is committed to protecting Great Salt Lake because it provides crucial habitat for 257 bird species. At least 33 species of shorebirds representing 2 to 5 million birds use Great Salt Lake annually. In addition, up to 5 million waterfowl migrate through the Lake each year, stopping along routes that take them as far away as Central and South America. Indeed, approximately 30 percent of the waterfowl migrating along the Pacific Flyway depend upon the Great Salt Lake wetlands. For these birds, the Lake provides a critical food supply, allowing them fuel up for the rest of their migrations, sometimes doubling their body weight before they leave.

Because the bed of Great Salt Lake is sovereign land, held in trust for the citizens of Utah, WRA argued that the State had failed to determine whether the leasing would jeopardize the public good. After long negotiations, the parties resolved the case in a settlement touted by both sides, in the editorial pages, and as a significant victory for anyone concerned about the Great Salt Lake and its complex and fragile ecosystem. The settlement suspends leases on more than 116,000 acres of Great Salt Lake and promises a complete analysis of the potential development impacts. Going forward, the public will be involved at every stage and will ultimately determine if any benefits from oil and gas development will outweigh costs to Great Salt Lake recreation and ecological values.

The conservation groups also reserved the right to challenge any development proposed for the remaining 55,000 acres of Great Salt Lake still subject to lease, and we will keep WRA members informed as this process evolves. For now, we are pleased that we have been able to suspend a large part of the proposed development and ensure public participation in protecting the Lake.

Oil and Gas Exploration Project Halted

In a move that is likely to protect some of Wyoming's most pristine areas, on January 12, 2006 an administrative law judge halted an oil and gas seismic survey project proposed for the Adobe Town area of southwest Wyoming's Red Desert. Conservationists and the oil and gas companies will now negotiate mutually agreeable solutions, including protection of the area's wildlife and habitat.

Western Resource Advocates (WRA) represents a coalition dedicated to protecting the Red Desert. Our partners are the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Wyoming Wilderness Association, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Center for Native Ecosystems, and The Wilderness Society.

The coalition challenged the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) environmental documentation related to a seismic survey proposed by Kerr McGee Corp. and Veritas DGC Land Inc. The two companies want to search for pockets of natural gas in a 130-square-mile area in the southern Red Desert, including the Adobe Town Wilderness Study Area and adjacent areas with wilderness values. Also in the project area is the Powder Rim, which provides essential habitat for elk, deer, and pronghorn, and features a juniper woodland that is home to nine rare songbirds. The Powder Rim is a key wildlife linkage between the rich and diverse foothill habitats of the Atlantic Rim and the trackless expanses of the southwestern Red Desert.

Key witness Jason Lillegraven, a retired University of Wyoming professor, said that BLM's proposal was likely to impact important fossil resources. The coalition also challenged use of 64,000 pound thumper trucks for 70% of the project, because they leave lasting scars on the land.

With the judge's favorable ruling, we and our colleagues are committed to negotiating a balanced solution that will allow exploration to proceed with adequate safeguards. "If BLM and Veritas are willing to use alternative methods that protect natural values, the project's shortcomings can be addressed in time to allow it to proceed on schedule this spring," said Mike Chiropolos, the Lands Program Director for Western Resource Advocates. "Protections for natural values are currently inadequate, and feasible solutions are available."

Victory for Storm Water Runoff Protection in Colorado

Western Resource Advocates and coalition partners win protection for streams and drinking water from oil and gas development

In a major victory that will help protect water quality, the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission voted 9-0 in favor of continuing regulation of storm water runoff from oil and gas development sites. In a significant victory for local governments, irrigators and the public interest, the Commission's action expanded the current regulatory program from sites greater than five acres to all sites impacting more than one acre.

Uncontrolled runoff from oil and gas construction sites can contribute thousands of tons of sediment to Colorado's streams every year. At the state rulemaking hearing, Commissioners heard testimony from local government representatives, planners, water quality experts, fisheries biologists, and environmental engineers about the threats and impacts from storm water runoff from oil and gas sites. Contractors hired by Western Resource Advocates (WRA) provided persuasive photographic documentation based on a survey that identified drilling sites and access roads that significantly impact water quality.

This win is especially meaningful for state regulation in the public interest because the recently-passed federal Energy Bill includes a provision stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate storm water runoff from oil and gas sites.

When the oil and gas industry asked the state agency responsible for protecting Colorado's water quality to eliminate a program designed to control storm water discharges from oil and gas construction sites, WRA quickly responded. We forged partnerships with local governments, water suppliers, water districts, and conservation groups who united to urge the Commission to continue to protect water quality. We also filed a comprehensive proposal endorsing adequate regulations, backed by scientific reports and modeling.

WRA represents the West Slope Water Network, a coalition made up of the Western Colorado Congress, Colorado Trout Unlimited, San Juan Citizens' Alliance, and High Country Citizens' Alliance. The coalition's efforts triggered a level of public participation and support unprecedented for a State hearing. Counties, cities, towns, regional councils of government, water districts, soil conservation districts, farmers' organizations, and one religious organization united with conservation groups in support of retaining the water quality program. Over 2,000 individual letters of support were submitted to the Commission. Senator Ken Salazar and Congressman John Salazar endorsed the program and over 20 state legislators signed a letter to the Commission supporting retention of the program.

January 9, 2006 was truly an historic day for a broad-based alliance of rural, water, and conservation interests in Colorado-united behind the public interest in safeguarding water quality.

The Race is On: Protecting Rocky Mountain Landscapes from Oil and Gas Development

Oil and gas development on federal lands across the Rockies continues at an unprecedented pace. In 2003, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a record number of new leases, including dozens on lands with spectacular values for wilderness, cultural resources, and wildlife habitat. The numbers are staggering:

As of July 2004, the Bush administration had issued nearly 5,000 new leases covering 4.8 million acres of public lands.
In 2004, an all-time high of almost 42 million acres of federal lands were leased for oil and gas development - including more than 35 million acres in the Rockies.
From 2001-03, BLM issued all-time highs of at least 3,700 new drilling permits per year.
The permitting pace is so fast and furious that industry has only managed to drill a fraction of the proposed wells - resulting in a backlog of several thousand approved permits on lands waiting to be drilled.

Does all this development contribute significantly to meeting American energy consumption? Judge for yourself: Over the past 15 years, the oil and gas industry produced only enough energy from all federal on-shore leases to satisfy 53 days of U.S. oil consumption and 221 days of natural gas consumption. That's a questionable tradeoff for sacrificing some of the West's most spectacular landscapes.

Concern across the Rocky Mountain region extends far beyond conservation groups:

In New Mexico, Governor Bill Richardson is taking a stand against proposals to sacrifice Otero Mesa and Valle Vidal to high-density gas development.
In Wyoming, Governor Dave Freudenthal is urging protection for wildlife habitat and landscapes in the Upper Green and Red Desert regions.
In Colorado, local counties and towns are opposed to high-density coalbed methane drilling in the San Juan National Forest and leasing of roadless areas encompassing municipal watersheds in the White River National Forest.
In North Dakota and Montana, new leases provoked protests from the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) concerned with safeguarding cultural resources.
In Utah, the Outdoor Industry Association protested 14 proposed oil and gas leases along Desolation Canyon due to their incompatibility with recreation and scenery in this world-renowned river corridor.

WRA attorneys are bringing diverse groups together, including conservationists, tribal members, ranchers, and local governments, in a shared mission to save our lands. In recent months, we filed challenges to protect the Little Missouri National Grasslands in North Dakota, the Greater Adobe Town wildlands complex in Wyoming, Thompson Creek and Pinyon Ridge in Colorado, the Strawberry Valley and Diamond Fork watersheds in Utah, and Huerfano Mesa in New Mexico.

Clean Water Act Enforcement in Wyoming

Wyoming has often been characterized as "ground zero" for the Bush Energy Plan's rapid acceleration of oil and gas development. With this acceleration comes another of associated impacts, including damage to water quality and wildlife.

We're particularly concerned about coalbed methane development, also known as CBM. CBM is methane gas extracted from coal seams-- a process largely accomplished by extracting large amounts of water from those seams, which in turn releases the gas. Relatively new technology was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s is now being utilized on a massive scale throughout the West.

Wyoming's Powder River Basin, for example, contains an estimated 25 trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane gas. The federal Bureau of Lands Management recently issued an environmental analysis projecting 51,000 CBM wells in the Powder River Basin by 2010. Averaging discharge of water at 9.5 gallons per minute, this will amount to nearly 700 million gallons drawn from aquifers and discharged each day, and 255 billion gallons produced and discharged each year.

Because the state of Wyoming does not require operators to reinject water back into the coal seam, most of this water is simply dumped onto the surface, creating a variety of environmental concerns.

The quality of the discharged water varies substantially. Discharges from the Big George coal seam in Wyoming Powder River Basin is high in salinity. Highly saline water is toxic to soil and plants. It also hardens soils and makes it more difficult for plants to absorb water. Plants can only tolerate a certain level of salinity in the soil before their growth is impaired.

WRA is working with local landowners and community groups to address water quality issues and other environmental problems associates with CBM development. Specifically, WRA has launched a Clean Water Act project designed to ensure CBM operations comply with pollution controls required by law. WRA is also working with local citizens to address water quality concerns during the permitting process and to insure that the public interest is considered in issuing permits for water withdrawals associated with CBM.

Protecting the Piceance Basin

The Piceance Basin extends from Utah's Little Book Cliffs area, to the Roan Plateau in NW Colorado, and the western slope of Grand Mesa. Though many areas of the Basin are still pristine, the region is slated for accelerated CBM development. Working with other groups, Western Resource Advocates has filed an appeal to require the BLM to follow legal precedent before approving leases for coalbed methane development in western Colorado's Piceance Basin. Claiming that CBM permits require no additional environmental review than existing analysis of "conventional" natural gas development, the BLM approved leasing of 24 parcels of federal lands in western Colorado.

We argue that the BLM officials who approved the disputed leases and denied the Protests have not found the time to visit the DOI website to educate themselves on CBM development. BLM documents and the growing technical literature on CBM development further erode the rationale for BLM's challenged decisions. The 9th Circuit Court has recently ruled that CBM discharge is a pollutant in other parts of the West.

Read more about Coalbed Methane development and its environmental impacts at www.doi.gov/coalbed/.

Grand Mesa National Forest Faces Ramped-up Drilling

In spring 2003, we filed suit on behalf of three Western Colorado community groups challenging Forest Service and BLM decisions to allow the reworking of an old conventional gas well for coalbed methane (CBM) exploration. The agencies argue that the first CBM well to be drilled on Grand Mesa National Forest can be approved as a "Categorical Exclusion" under the National Environmental Policy Act, which precludes meaningful public comment on the environmental impacts of the project. The CBM project generated enormous public and scientific controversy in Delta County, where the Commissioners have issued a moratorium on CBM approvals pending adequate study of impacts to underground drinking water aquifers and surface values. We want to enforce laws passed by Congress to protect local communities and the environment from the serious impacts--mostly to water supplies--suffered by CBM-producing regions elsewhere in the West, such as the San Juan Basin in southwest Colorado and the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming.

Winter Range Habitat Should Remain Undisturbed

Western Resource Advocates is representing a coalition of local, regional, and national conservation groups in an action to protect wildlife from drilling activities in crucial winter range habitat in the Upper Green Valley.

The Upper Green River Valley is a crucial biological link, connecting the stunning mountain ranges that spill out of Greater Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks with one of the most unique and spectacular landscapes in North America -- the Red Desert. Nestled between the high peaks of the Wind River, Gros Ventre, Wyoming, Snake, and Salt River Ranges, the Upper Green is home to impressive herds of mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk. Each fall, more than 100,000 animals travel on ancient paths from their summer homes in Greater Yellowstone's mountain highlands to the grasslands of the Upper Green River Valley. Some of these paths comprise the longest big-game migration routes for both mule deer and pronghorn antelope in the lower 48 states.

Our case against the Bureau of Land Management will require the government to enforce protections for wildlife and comply with important public participation requirements so that the general public has better notice of drilling proposals and an opportunity to comment on those proposals as they develop. The case is fully briefed and awaiting a decision from Judge Johnson of the Wyoming Federal District Court.

San Juan Basin Development

WRA attorneys are working on oil and gas issues in the San Juan Basin of northwest New Mexico, representing a broad coalition including the San Juan Citizens' Alliance (www.sanjuancitizens.org), Navajo grassroots group Dine CARE, and local ranchers.

The BLM Farmington Resource Area is the second most productive gas field in the nation, after the Gulf of Mexico. However, the field is characterized by haphazard development, inadequate inspection and enforcement activities by government regulators, and the lack of any real protections for surface resources. Despite the acknowledged problems, BLM is proposing a 50% increase in the number of gas wells in the planning area, from 18,000 to 28,000.

(Click here for a fact sheet from Dine CARE)

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