Energy development continues to be the most urgent and time-consuming of our watchdog (defensive) issues. The western portion of the White River National Forest is in the bull's eye for natural-gas leasing and drilling; meanwhile, oil-shale development is looming for the BLM lands north of Rifle.
On natural gas, our aim is to hold the line on further leasing of roadless and sensitive areas on the WRNF and to minimize new drilling and associated roads and impacts on existing leases. We are currently working on comments to help guide the WRNF as the agency revises its 1993 Oil & Gas Environmental Impact Statement, the guiding document for all energy policy and actions on the Forest.
With the Natural Resources Defense Council, we've filed suit over the proposed Hells Gulch project, a development of 45 new wells on the WRNF south of Silt. This is a strategic action intended to force the WRNF and the BLM (which approves subsurface developments on all federal lands) to analyze the impacts of the proposed wells on air quality in the downstream “airsheds” of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass and Flat Tops wilderness areas and to deny any development that threatens to violate state and federal air quality standards.
In a separate but related initiative, we’re pressing the BLM to conduct a Health Impact Analysis to study the broader impacts of energy development, as part of its ongoing revision of its Resource Management Plan for the Glenwood and Kremmling resource areas. This a potentially powerful lever to ensure that the agency takes into account foreseeable off-site health impacts of energy projects, such as air and water quality, traffic and social ills.
And in a potentially exciting development, as members of the Thompson Divide Coalition, we’re exploring strategies to permanently protect roadless areas in the Thompson Creek, Coal Creek, Clear Creek, East Divide Creek, Garfield Creek, and Fourmile Creek watersheds from energy development. Strategies are evolving. Rural communities in New Mexico, Montana and Wyoming have successfully protected nearby public lands with federal legislation withdrawing the areas from availability for future leasing. While we cannot predict the outcome, we look forward to provoking the conversation between our community and our Congressional representatives to figure out the best solution for us.
The impacts of oil shale development on the BLM lands north of Rifle would be catastrophic: 100% surface disturbance, the construction of several new coal-fired power plants, the appropriation of essentially all the Western Slope’s water, horrendous air pollution downwind, and disproportionate climate-change effects. Despite these environmental impacts, the push for more domestic energy production is giving political momentum to commercial oil shale development and the BLM is on a fast track to approve it. We are hopeful that the Obama administration will reverse this policy, but in the meantime we have joined with a coalition of environmental groups suing to block the Bush administration's approvals of commercial oil shale development.
Finally, we're assisting with air quality monitoring to establish baseline data against which to gauge future impacts of energy development upwind of our area.