Federal Plan Exposes Colorado's Entire Roan Plateau to Drilling

RIFLE, Colorado, November 29, 2004 (ENS) - The Roan Plateau, rising 3,500 feet above the Colorado River valley, with the towns of Rifle and Parachute at its feet, is the latest object of discord in the Western energy conflict. The federal government plans to open the plateau to oil and gas development that local groups and some elected officials call "controversial and extreme."

On November 19, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the Roan Plateau Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement for public review and comment. Oil and gas leasing is being considered throughout the 73,600 acres of public lands within the planning area.

In response, area community leaders and conservationists are asking that the agency revise the plan to protect one-third of the area from oil and gas development - the third that lies at the top of the plateau and along the sides of its steep cliffs.

"Over the past year, a wide range of citizens and local communities have asked BLM to adopt a middle ground solution that doesn’t open the plateau's’s tops and cliffs to drilling," said Lisa Bracken, a local landowner and realtor. "Unfortunately, none of the scenarios proposed last week by the BLM provide the protection that citizens and local communities have asked for. We shouldn’t be asking how far we can push it. We should be asking how lightly we can tread."

Steep hillsides of the Roan Plateau near Parachute, Colorado (Photos courtesy BLM)

In its draft plan, the BLM outlined five alternatives for management of the Roan Plateau's oil and gas leasing. The agency’s preferred alternative would open the entire area to oil and gas leasing, but would defer leasing until 80 percent of the anticipated wells beneath the plateau’s cliffs have been drilled.

Lands along the base of the plateau along the I-70 highway have been leased and are now being drilled. Although the BLM says that the preferred alternative would defer drilling for about 16 years, critics believe that 80 percent of the plateau’s base could be drilled much more quickly.

"Deferred drilling doesn’t protect Roan Plateau," said Bob Millette, a representative of the local Trout Unlimited chapter. "It just delays the damage to clean air, water, and habitat."

"Based on current levels of activity, industry will be past the threshold and drilling on top long before even 10 years," said Larry Amos of Winterhawk Outfitters. "Once it’s leased, industry has the right to extract the resource. The result would be hundreds or thousands of wells on top of the plateau, in one of the state’s most unique recreational areas."

Most of the planning area is in western Garfield County, Colorado, and a small portion is in southern Rio Blanco County, Colorado. The area at issue lies between the towns of Rifle and Parachute and consists of three visually, geologically, and ecologically distinct areas - dry semi-desert habitats at lower elevations, moist montane and subalpine habitats at higher elevations, and a band of high and most unbroken cliffs separating these areas.

Lands within the planning area drain westward to Parachute Creek, eastward to Government Creek, or southward to the Colorado River. Parachute Creek and Government Creek are also tributaries of the Colorado River.

Forests of aspen, fir and spruce, wildflower meadows and expanses of sagebrush crossed by these creeks beckon to hikers and ranchers alike, but the energy potential beneath the surface has historically been the defining attraction of the Roan Plateau.

The planning area includes two Former Naval Oil Shale Reserves (NOSR) 1 and 3, originally created as a future source of fuel supplies for the U.S. Navy.

In the early 1980s, private oil and gas companies began to develop natural gas reserves in the surrounding areas and, in 1985, DOE initiated a natural gas drilling program in NOSR 3.

A 1997 law directed the transfer of the 56,000 acres of former Naval Oil Shale Reserves from the Department of Energy to the Bureau of Land Management.

A well site on the Roan Plateau (Photo courtesy BLM)

In addition to mineral resources, NOSR 3 contains recreational, livestock grazing, watershed, paleontological, wildlife habitat and visual resources. It also includes natural habitats for sensitive plants and animals.

An environmental danger in the form of a pile of shale waste from over 40 years of oil shale mining and processing now sits roughly 1,000 feet long and 350 feet high in a narrow ravine adjacent to West Sharrard Creek - a tributary which flows to the Colorado River less than two miles from the waste pile.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the primary environmental regulator for the state, and BLM's contractor, Dynamac, have conducted analyses of the site, known as the Anvil Points Research Facility Site, and have concluded that the pile is the source of arsenic and other heavy metals contamination leaching into surface and groundwater.

The pile's constituents have been determined to be hazardous through direct physical contact, according to Congressional testimony given in June 2001 by Pete Culp, the BLM's assistant director minerals, realty and resource protection. In addition, there are questions regarding the physical stability of the pile due to its steep slope, lack of vegetation, and proximity to the West Sharrard Creek, Culp told the lawmakers.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, these findings are considered threats to human health and the environment. Ancillary facilities in the area, such as open adits, sheds, and gravel roads, also require remedial actions.

Since 1997, the BLM has collected $10 million in lease receipts, which are currently being held in a U. S. Treasury account. The use of the fund as specified in the original transfer legislation is to restore environmental damage at the site that was caused by years of oil shale research and development as well as oil and gas exploration.

In November 2002, Congress passed a special authorization allowing the BLM access to the U. S. Treasury account for site remediation. But, while analysis is ongoing, to date no remediation has taken place.

Forests in the Roan Plateau planning area (Photo courtesy BLM)

Meanwhile, the local groups are working to protect the Roan Plateau for backcountry recreation, hunting and fishing, and critical habitat for some of the purest strains of the imperiled Colorado cutthroat trout.

They emphasize that they are not opposed to oil and gas development and say their proposal to the BLM would open to oil and gas development fully two-thirds of the planning area, and would make available 86 percent of the gas likely to be produced from the Roan Plateau area over the next 20 years, by the BLM’s own estimates.

"I’m optimistic that we can protect a special part of this country that my husband considered to be heaven on earth," said Judy Hayward, a member of the Parachute Town Council.

"The oil and gas industry is like a train running at full speed. We need to identify a brake and save a special spot in the world for my children and grandchildren," said Hayward. "The BLM's set of alternatives fails to provide adequate protections for these cherished, unique resources."

The local groups are asking the BLM to craft a revised plan that would:

• Prohibit drilling the public lands atop the Plateau and on the cliffs or at least defer all leasing on the top and cliffs of the Plateau until energy development can be achieved through directional drilling or other evolving technologies that will not require surface disturbance to the top and cliffs

• Provide real, non-changeable protections for the important habitat and natural areas in the planning area, including placing permanent "no ground disturbance" stipulations on all the unique natural lands of the planning area

• Ensure that development is conducted in a manner that respects the local community, employs "best management practices," and minimizes resource damage

In its draft plan, the BLM says it is considering three areas, totaling 21,382 acres, for management to maintain their wilderness characteristics within the range of alternatives.

Jamie Connell, manager of the BLM's Glenwood Springs Field Office, explains in its draft plan that the agency cannot create new Wilderness Study Areas. This designation was prohibited by an April 11, 2003 settlement agreement between the Department of the Interior and the State of Utah, Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, and Utah Association of Counties. However, alternatives for the protection and management of wilderness characteristics are being considered.

A developed portion of the Roan Plateau planning area (Photo courtesy BLM)

The draft plan includes two configurations for a watershed management area.

In addition, several stream segments have been found to be eligible for further study to determine their suitability for designation as Wild and Scenic Rivers. Under all alternatives these stream segments "would be managed to protect pertinent values until such time as a suitability study and further planning is completed," the BLM said.

"We appreciate the BLM’s efforts to create a well considered plan for Roan Plateau, but the agency’s current preferred plan just doesn’t go far enough to protect this extraordinary place," said Clare Bastable of the Campaign to Save Roan Plateau. "Industry should not be the entity calling the shots about what level of drilling is appropriate, about surface protections, or about drilling the top of the Plateau. Some places are simply too special to drill, and Roan Plateau is one of them."

The Draft RMP Amendment/Draft EIS and associated documents such as maps, planning criteria, and supporting background information are online at: http://www.roanplateau.ene.com

Public comments are welcome until February 22, 2005. Submit written comments to: Roan Plateau Comments, Attention Greg Goodenow, Bureau of Land Management, Glenwood Springs Field Office, P.O. Box 1009, Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81602. Comments also may be submitted electronically at http://www.roanplateau.ene.com. Click on the comment tab.