DENVER—A federal appeals court has ordered that no work can be done on a gas pipeline through roadless forest in western Colorado until it sorts out a legal dispute.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver issued a temporary injunction Friday blocking any construction on the Bull Mountain natural gas pipeline in the roadless areas.
The court set a hearing for June 18 on environmental groups’ appeal of a lower court’s decision against blocking construction. The groups expect a quick ruling on whether the injunction should stay in place until their lawsuit challenging the pipeline is decided.
Until then, no construction is allowed on the 25.5-mile Bull Mountain pipeline in roadless areas in the White River and Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests.
“We are happy that the court exercised its authority before that authority was usurped by the bulldozers ripping through the roadless area,” said Sloan Shoemaker of the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop.
The Wilderness Workshop and other groups argue that approval of the pipeline violates a Clinton-era ban on new roads in remote parts of national forests.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees development of minerals on federal land, has said no roads will be built. Federal officials say that building the pipeline around the roadless would have greater environmental impacts because the route would be longer and go through riparian areas.
BLM spokesman Steven Hall said he hadn’t seen the court order. He said the agency would abide by it.
Robin Cooley, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is representing the environmental groups, said approval of the pipeline through roadless areas sets a dangerous precedent.
“A road is a road is a road, no matter what the government calls it,” Cooley said. “And roads are illegal in roadless areas.”
The legal dispute is one of a few pending on the 2001 road-building ban. The roadless rule, passed toward the end of the Clinton administration, was overturned by a federal court and replaced by a Bush administration policy opening some of the land to development.
The 2001 rule, which affected about a third of the country’s 192 million acres of national forest land, was reinstated in 2006 when another federal court threw out the Bush administration’s policy. Colorado has drafted its own plan for managing the roadless areas, but the 2001 rule is in effect in the state until the federal government approves the plan.
