Colorado Forest Project In the News

RIFLE — In what environmental groups are calling “a last resort” move, a coalition said Monday it plans to sue the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to try to prevent the agency from proceeding with plans to lease the Roan Plateau near Rifle for oil and gas development.

The announcement comes after the BLM last week said it will lease public lands on the Roan in its quarterly oil and gas lease sale Aug. 14.

Groups including the Colorado Environmental Coalition, Environment Colorado, Rock the Earth and the Roaring Fork Sierra Club Group also said they plan to file a formal protest of the lease sale by the July 30 deadline for doing so. Last week, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said a formal protest is one of the options the state also is considering to oppose the lease sale.

The BLM had rejected a proposal by Ritter to lease the Roan in stages, something Ritter contends would reduce environmental impacts and bring more revenue to the state. The federal government shares oil and gas lease payments and production royalties with the state.

The BLM plans to lease the public lands all at once and then allow for phased development on the plateau top.

Environmentalists contend the BLM failed to consider alternatives that would protect the Roan Plateau’s most sensitive resources, and didn’t account for oil and gas drilling’s impacts on air and wildlife. They said they hope to compel the BLM to address the environmental and fiscal impacts of its drilling plans.

“Colorado acted in good faith, trusting in the Bush administration’s promises that it would listen to local governments and those most affected by its decisions, but it has been like talking to a brick wall,” Marc Ross, with Colorado-based Rock the Earth, said in a news release.

“Let’s be clear. This is a last resort,” he said of the planned lawsuit.

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall, all Colorado Democrats, are pursuing legislation aimed at compelling the BLM to follow Ritter’s phased-leasing approach and environmental protections proposed by the governor. They hope to get the measure passed before the August lease sale.

Environmentalists plan to file their lawsuit in the next few weeks. Matt Garrington, field director for Environment Colorado, said they hope to win a court injunction stopping the August leasing of the Roan.

“Clearly the BLM plan doesn’t do what Coloradans and local officials on the Western Slope want, which is to protect the Roan,” he said.

Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM’s Colorado office, said the groups’ lawsuit plans aren’t surprising. He said it’s become increasingly common for federal decisions on energy development to be appealed or litigated. All of the parcels leased in the BLM’s recent Colorado lease sales have been protested, he said.

Hall said the BLM has followed a 1997 congressional directive to develop oil and gas on the Roan, and has spent the better part of a decade coming up with its drilling plan.

“We feel good about our decision. We’re going to move forward with it,” he said.

Marc Smith, executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, said in a prepared statement about the environmental groups’ plans, “Further attempts to delay the leasing of these lands will deny Americans access to energy we need every day.”