Colorado resources will help meet the nation’s energy needs, but oil and gas development should respect other public values such as clean air, clean water and wildlife. There is a risk that the frenetic pace of oil and gas activity in the West is running roughshod over other public goals. And the leases now being granted could dictate the fate of our public lands and national forests for decades.
The Bush administration long has pushed for expanded drilling on federal lands, even in ecologically sensitive areas. As a result, if a future Congress wants to someday protect those areas, it may be too late. Mineral leases are property rights, so once oil and gas companies obtain them they have all but guaranteed their ability to move in drill rigs, usually within a 10-year window. Oil companies also must apply for drilling permits, but that approval is very likely.
Ironically, energy outfits already have more federal land under lease than they can drill in the foreseeable future. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s 2004 data show that energy companies have leased 35 million acres of public lands, but only about a third, or 11.6 million acres, are producing any oil or gas. Energy companies have more than 4,300 leases on federal lands in Colorado, but in 2004 sought permission to drill on just 378. The backlog of untapped leases means that oil and gas companies have locked in their right to drill on public lands well beyond this administration.
The companies say there’s so much drilling taking place that they can’t get enough rigs – they’re even bringing in rigs from China. So this month, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Colorado office changed its rules; now, energy companies won’t forfeit their rights even if they miss existing deadlines to drill on lands they lease from Uncle Sam. The change will have the effect of prolonging the era that current leasing policies hold sway.
The real concern, though, isn’t just how fast but where the BLM is granting leases. Last month, the U.S. government ignored protests of local communities and issued oil and gas leases in watersheds that provide Grand Junction and Palisade with drinking water. The move was especially alarming because last summer’s federal energy legislation exempted a common oil field practice from clean water laws.
In northwestern Colorado, the BLM’s field office sensibly recommended against oil and gas leasing on 20,000 acres where the endangered black-footed ferret was recently re-introduced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Colorado Division of Wildlife. But higher-ups in the BLM still nominated much of the area near Rangely for leasing.
The BLM’s action in that case alarms Coloradans trying to protect another sensitive site, the Roan Plateau near Rifle. The BLM has been preparing an environmental study and taking public comments about proposed natural gas drilling atop the Roan. Meanwhile, energy companies are blasting and bulldozing roads onto the plateau. The companies say they’re accessing leases on private land, but citizen advocates fear the companies are building the roads knowing that the BLM will let them on to the public domain, too.
State biologists say drilling on the Roan will reduce mule deer herds by a third – one of many studies that show intensive oil and gas activity impacts wildlife. The BLM can impose special wildlife protection rules, called stipulations, on drilling companies, but it often waives the stipulations with no public notice or comment. Oil companies also have asked Congress to end the BLM’s authority to impose any wildlife stipulations.
Decades after Bush leaves office, his policy of intensively leasing public lands will leave a conflicted legacy on our region’s landscapes and wildlife.
