DENVER—Environmentalists are suing the federal government to prevent drilling on what they say is the last untouched area of the San Juan Basin in southwest Colorado.
The lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday alleges new gas drilling in the foothills of the steep and rugged San Juan Mountains would cause landslides, water and air pollution and drive away wildlife in the area known as the HD Mountains.
Named in the lawsuit are the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which gave two companies the go-ahead in April to drill for coal-bed methane in the mountains.
Environmentalists say there are plenty of gas wells already in the San Juan basin.
Mark Pearson, executive director of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, said there are about 25,000 gas-producing wells between Farmington, N.M., and Durango, and another 12,000 pending.
“So that’s part of our concern,” Pearson said. “It’s not unreasonable that one tiny sliver could be left undrilled when the other 99 percent is already intensely developed.”
The San Juan Citizens Alliance filed the lawsuit, along with Colorado Wild, the Colorado Environmental Coalition, The Wilderness Society, and the Oil and Gas Accountability Project.
The project challenged by the lawsuit calls for 140 new wells, 39 of which would be in the HD Mountains.
Mark Stiles, the San Juan National Forest Supervisor and BLM Center Manager, said the decision to allow additional drilling came after reviewing proposals from six companies in the last five years. Stiles said those companies had rights to drill in the area because they had the leases since the 1970s.
Stiles said it wasn’t a question of whether to allow the work, but of analyzing how the work would be done.
“We didn’t have a decision of ‘yes’ or ‘no,'” Stiles said. “We had a decision of how.”
Even so, Stiles said of the several hundred wells proposed in the northern San Juan basin, only about 80 percent were approved. Stiles said the majority of the 68,000 comments from public opposed the drilling.
Coal-bed methane gas is extracted from underground coal seams by pumping groundwater to relieve pressure trapping the gas.
Pearson said the steep mountains will make it challenging to drill and cause landslides that can pollute the water supply used by farmers and ranchers in the area. He said the development will also drive away elk and deer that roam the area in the winter.
An additional concern, Pearson said, is the ozone pollution caused by the ongoing oil and gas drilling.
“Collectively, we’re seeing a significant decline in air quality in the San Juan basin,” Pearson said.
