DENVER—A change in ownership of energy leases on the Roan Plateau has dimmed hopes for a settlement in a lawsuit over plans to increase natural gas drilling on the western Colorado landmark.
Denver attorney Jim Angell, representing environmental groups in the lawsuit, said the new leaseholder’s position in the negotiations has complicated efforts to settle the lawsuit challenging a plan to open more public land on the plateau to development.
The groups claim the federal government’s environmental analysis of the potential impacts of development was inadequate.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger has said she’ll issue a ruling by July 1 if the dispute isn’t settled.
The battle over tapping the Roan Plateau’s vast gas reserves and protecting its extensive wildlife habitat and undeveloped backcountry moved to the courts last year after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved opening up more areas to drilling.
Last summer’s auction of federal leases on 54,631 acres of the plateau generated nearly $114 million, a record for onshore energy lease sales in the lower 48 states.
Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. recently paid $60 million for a 90 percent interest in the leases held by Vantage Energy. Most of the land is on top of the plateau, which conservation groups and several area communities have argued is too environmentally sensitive to develop.
Barrett’s proposals so far, Angell said, don’t “give us much hope for a settlement.”
Barrett didn’t immediately return calls for comment Tuesday. Barrett Senior Vice President Duane Zavadil told the (Grand Junction) Sentinel earlier this month that all opportunities for a settlement “are on the table.”
Interior Department spokesman Frank Quimby declined to comment on the negotiations.
“It’s in litigation,” he said. “It’s a very difficult situation and topic.”
The Obama administration inherited the lawsuit from the Bush administration. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, named in the lawsuit, clashed with the Bush administration over drilling on the Roan Plateau while he was a Colorado senator. He blocked the confirmation of President George Bush’s nominee to head the BLM in 2007 until Colorado officials got more time to review the development plan and backed Gov. Bill Ritter’s attempt to protect more of the land.
In February, federal officials sought more time to submit briefs in the lawsuit so Salazar could review the issues and his intention to explore an out-of-court settlement.
Angell said the new administration could have limited the negotiations to government officials and the environmental groups. The companies are interveners on the government’s behalf.
The Interior Department also could have decided against defending the development plan, Angell added.
“It was certainly within their power to acknowledge the legal and other problems with the Bush administration’s push to lease every square foot of the Roan Plateau,” Angell said.
The Roan Plateau, about 180 miles west of Denver, looms over the Colorado River and alternates between open flat spots, deep canyons and rugged peaks as high as 9,000 feet. It sits atop several trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to industry and federal estimates, and is home to large oil shale deposits.
The plateau and surrounding area is also home to some of the country’s largest deer and elk herds and genetically pure native cutthroat trout dating to the last ice age.
Environmental, hunting and fishing groups say the Roan Plateau, along with Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front and New Mexico’s Valle Vidal, are regional environmental gems too important to risk damaging with energy development. The energy industry has argued that there’s already drilling on private land on the Roan Plateau and the area can play a vital role in boosting domestic energy production.
