The number of producing oil and gas wells on Western public lands will double over the next 20 years, according to a new analysis of federal actions authorizing new drilling.
In its new report “Too Wild To Drill,” the Wilderness Society estimates 118,000 new wells will be drilled on public lands in Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana by 2026.
Group officials say the estimate is conservative because it didn’t include drilling plans still being crafted by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
“We are about to see gas drilling at a magnitude greater than anything we’ve ever experienced, and it threatens to forever damage many of our most treasured Western places,” said William Meadows, president of the conservation group.
Industry officials said the number of surface acres disturbed on federal lands by oil and gas development amounts to just a fraction of the total acreage.
According to 2003 public-land statistics, less than 1 percent of the more than 261 million surface acres BLM manages is disturbed by oil and gas development.
“It’s a temporary impact,” said Marc Smith, director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States. “As soon as a well is drilled, we begin interim reclamation, and once it’s producing, final reclamation begins.”
In Colorado, the Wilderness Society says, 22,802 wells are slated to be drilled on public lands over the next 20 years – third behind Wyoming and Montana.
“If drilling continues at the pace set by the Bush administration, Colorado’s landscape will be forever disfigured,” said Suzanne Jones of the Wilderness Society’s Four Corners office in Denver.
Vaughn Whatley, a spokesman for the state BLM office, said managing public lands to support energy is part of BLM’s multiple-use mission.
“We do not have to choose between the environment and the energy,” Whatley said. “We choose management actions that balance our national needs to maintain our economy,our national security and our quality of life.”
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-954-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
