Durango – The first fight that the San Juan Citizens Alliance picked was in 1987 over a stoplight.
The alliance won.
For its next campaign, the fledgling group tackled the energy development spreading across southwestern Colorado.
It’s still fighting that one.
Since its formation nearly 20 years ago, the San Juan Citizens Alliance has found itself in the middle of Colorado’s biggest environmental battles.
It has championed wolves, wilderness and wild rivers, while battling new coal power plants, salvage logging and a resort city proposed for Wolf Creek Pass.
Still, at the heart of it all remains the group’s campaign for responsible oil and gas development.
“The county commissioners were initially dubious about the need to step in and defend landowners,” said executive director Mark Pearson. “Now, it pretty much goes without saying that all our elected officials realize the playing field is not balanced.”
Local governments in the state’s rural, mostly conservative southwestern region have lined up behind the group’s no-drilling stance on coal-bed methane development in the HD Mountains, forcing U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service officials to rethink their development scenarios.
Much of the alliance’s credibility, said former county commissioner and Bayfield Mayor Josh Joswick, comes from its long advocacy on an issue that is having a significant impact.
“It’s not abstract; it’s reality,” Joswick said. “They have been able to help a lot of people in the real world.”
Among its other efforts, the San Juan Citizens Alliance is:
Tracking a proposal for the 1,500-megawatt Desert Rock generating plant on Navajo tribal land.
Endorsing wilderness designations along the Dolores River, even as the Bush administration is auctioning natural-gas leases to the industry.
Establishing an office in Farmington, N.M., to keep tabs on drilling there.
Trying to reduce nutrient pollution that turns the Animas River into a soupy green goo.
Fighting a plan to build an Aspen-sized city on top of Wolf Creek Pass.
Pushing for wolf restoration, including a reintroduction program for Colorado.
But the alliance’s signature effort has been the 14-year fight to block drilling in the HD Mountains.
Amoco first proposed punching 33 wells in the roadless area to access methane locked in a coal formation under the San Juan basin in 1991.
Convincing elected officials that there was a problem was a lonely fight, recalled Gwen Lachelt, the alliance’s first employee.
Speakers at public hearings sometimes would turn away from commissioners to yell at group members, said Lachelt, who now runs the Oil & Gas Accountability Project, also in Durango.
“It took a lot of gumption to keep with it,” she said.
Amoco eventually sold its leases in the HDs after an outpouring of opposition.
Now, the alliance is fighting another drilling plan for the HDs. This time, the community has been with the group from the start.
Staff writer Theo Stein can be reached at 303-820-1657 or tstein@denverpost.com.
