The governors of Colorado and Wyoming 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 U.S. Interior Department officials, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Monday.
Colorado, Wyoming 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 isn’t enough time to analyze the potential environmental, economic and social impacts, Ritter and Freudenthal said.
A spokesman for Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman referred questions about the state’s position to Huntsman’s energy adviser, Laura Nelson, who didn’t return calls to The Associated Press.
“Your staff has indicated to us that this 2,000-page document will be the cornerstone of your decisions for a Commercial Oil Shale Program in northwest Colorado,” Ritter wrote in an April 17 letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “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.”
Ritter asked that the states’ review be extended through Sept. 11.
