DENVER-
The governors of Wyoming and Colorado want federal officials to allow more than the allotted two weeks for the states to study and comment on a draft environmental review of commercial-scale oil shale development proposed in the region.
Bill Ritter of Colorado and Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming sent letters last month calling the May 15-29 review period “unacceptable” and “unrealistic.”
Colorado natural resources chief Harris Sherman and Jim Martin, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, were in Washington to meet with Interior Department officials, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Monday.
Wyoming, Colorado and Utah are among 14 states, local governments and agencies discussing a draft environmental impact statement on tapping an estimated 100-year supply of oil locked in rock formations in western Colorado, eastern Utah and southwest Wyoming. Much of the land is public.
The states will get copies of the document before the public does, but two weeks aren’t enough time to analyze the potential environmental, economic and social impacts, Ritter and Freudenthal said.
The Utah state staff has “just really put our heads down” to keep up with developments, but is considering sending a letter saying that more time would be preferable, said Laura Nelson, energy adviser to Gov. Jon Huntsman.
In an April 17 letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Ritter said federal staffers indicated the document, expected to be 2,000 pages, will be the cornerstone of decisions on commercial oil shale on public lands in northwest Colorado.
“It is unrealistic, unnecessary and simply wrong to limit cooperating agencies to 15 days of substantive review and comment for a program of this magnitude,” wrote Ritter, who took office in January.
He asked that the states’ review be extended through Sept. 11.
Ritter is also seeking more time to review the Bureau of Land Management’s final plan for the Roan Plateau in western Colorado that would allow the drilling of up to 1,570 natural gas wells over 20 years.
Heather Feeney, a BLM spokeswoman in Washington, said Interior officials were preparing a formal response to the governors’ request on oil shale . She said she didn’t know whether the states would get more time to review the plan. She said Interior officials noted that the states and other cooperating agencies, including some cities and counties, have already seen substantial portions of the document.
The states will also have 90 days after the plan’s public release for review and comments, Feeney said.
The preliminary environmental impact statement on development on federal land is being written by the Bureau of Land Management, part of the Interior Department. A final plan will be developed after the 90-day comment period.
The 2005 federal energy bill directed the Interior Department to write a programmatic environmental analysis, which covers a larger-than-usual area or program.
“The states understandably want to be cautious and prudent. We’re trying to accommodate them,” Feeney said.
She said, though, that the environmental analysis is already a few months behind schedule. The energy bill gave the Interior Department only 18 months, which would have been in February.
“I think it’s disappointing that the state won’t have time to give a meaningful review and meaningful input,” Bob Randall, an attorney with Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates, an environmental law and policy group.
Industry officials didn’t immediately return calls for comment.
Environmentalists and local governments have urged federal officials to move cautiously on oil shale. The reserves in Colorado, Utah and southwest Wyoming are believed to contain a 100-year domestic supply of oil, although it’s locked in layers of hard rock and the technology for recovering it affordably is still evolving.
Area officials and residents are also wary because of the oil-shale bust of the early 1980s. Western Colorado’s economy was sent reeling for years after falling oil prices led Exxon to shut down its $5 billion Colony oil-shale project in Parachute and lay off 2,200 workers.
Last year, the Interior Department approved 10-year leases for oil-shale research and development projects for Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Co., Chevron USA and EGL Resources Inc. on separate sites in northwest Colorado. Oil Shale Exploration Co. won approval last month of an experimental project in Utah.
