A coalition of 10 environmental groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a sale next month of oil and gas leases on the Roan Plateau, an area with pristine backcountry that nearby residents, Gov. Bill Ritter and others hope to protect.
The lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver asks a judge to issue an injunction to stop the Bureau of Land Management from offering the leases in an Aug. 14 auction.
About 55,186 acres of public land on the plateau, about 180 miles west of Denver, are up for lease. Of those, roughly 34,000 acres are on top of the plateau, an area considered particularly sensitive by some because of the wildlife habitat. Hunters, anglers and other outdoor enthusiasts have opposed the BLM’s management plan, which the lawsuit said could result in more than 3,000 wells on the plateau’s top.
“The public’s call for an ecologically sensitive approach to development of the Roan Plateau fell on deaf ears,” the lawsuit said.
A BLM spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. The oil and gas industry group Americans for American Energy said there’s enough natural gas in the plateau to heat more than 4 million homes for 25 years and provide $1 billion in tax revenue.
“The public is being sold on this idea that if we slow down oil and gas development, that would allow renewable energy to take hold, and we would soon wake up to this rosy renewable-energy future,” said Ken Wonstolen, legal counsel for industry group the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. “That totally ignores the scale of our energy economy and the time it would take to displace” fossil fuels.
Federal officials have said the management plan opening some of the public land to leasing was seven years in the making and is one of the most restrictive ever approved by the BLM.
