BLM to Sell Oil and Gas Leases on Wilderness Quality Lands

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, October 31, 2003 (ENS) - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intends to sell oil and gas leases on federal land in Utah that the agency previously indicated should be considered for protection as wilderness. Conservationists plan to challenge most of the lease sales, which they say demonstrate the Bush administration's desire to carve open public lands to private development through a controversial legal settlement with the state of Utah.

"The Utah wilderness lands put on the block are just the beginning," said Dave Alberswerth, a public lands policy expert with The Wilderness Society.

In a quarterly oil and gas lease sale to be held on November 24, the BLM's Utah office will auction 55 pieces of land across 64,000 acres for oil and gas leasing - including 14 parcels for some 14,600 acres of land that a 1999 agency review determined could merit wilderness designation.

Administration officials say the lands were never formally protected and that the lease sale does not represent a change in policy, but critics are far from convinced.

Some of the leases are in Utah's Desolation Canyon, which conservationists believe should be protected from development. (Photo courtesy BLM)

Bloch's organization, long with three other environmental groups, plans to challenge 12 of the leases - all in the Book Cliffs, a large plateau in eastern Utah.

The controversial leases are all on lands proposed for wilderness designation by a bill introduced in Congress in April and sponsored by 15 senators and 158 members of the House of Representatives.

Critics note that the planned sale would not have been possible without an April settlement agreed to by Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton and Utah Governor Michael Leavitt.

Leavitt was confirmed as the administration's new head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this past Tuesday.

The deal settled a lawsuit brought by the state of Utah and the Utah Association of Counties filed against the BLM for its 1999 inventory of lands that qualify for wilderness protection. That inventory identified three million more acres in Utah that qualified for wilderness protection than had been identified by previous inventory.

Such a designation prohibits development and the use of motorized off road vehicles.

Although the legal case was largely rejected by the courts, the state renewed its challenge in March 2003 and the Bush administration brokered a settlement and disallowed the use of the 1999 statewide BLM reinventory of Utah's public lands.

The settlement, brokered without public involvement, details that the BLM did not have authority to designate lands as wilderness that had not been identified with such potential prior to 1993. It determined that lands that the Clinton administration said should be protected until Congress determines if they are worthy of permanent protection must no longer be afforded that interim protection.

The effect was the repeal of such protection for 2.6 million acres of BLM land in Utah.

Utah Governor Mike Leavitt's settlement with Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton dramatically altered how BLM protects wilderness quality lands. (Photo courtesy Governor Leavitt's office)

"Previous administrations proved that there can be a balance between wilderness protection and oil and gas development," said former BLM Director Jim Baca. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration is instead striving to appease the oil and gas industry no matter the cost to our national heritage of wild and untamed places."

Conservationists contend that the BLM's Utah lease sale threatens portions of Desolation Canyon, which was named and apparently first described by John Wesley Powell during his historic expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers to the Grand Canyon.

Upon entering the canyon, Powell described the area in his diary as the "wildest" and a "wilderness."

In its 1999 reinventory of the area, the BLM cited the area's "... cultural, scenic, geologic, botanical, and wildlife values' and wrote of Desolation Canyon as a "is a place where a visitor can experience true solitude - where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."

The sale of the Utah leases is the "just the first horse out of the gate with the Bush administration's no wilderness policy," said Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness.

Critics worry that Bush administration's policies will endanger special places, including much of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. (Photo courtesy U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

Agency land managers are charged with balancing land use plans in the context of local needs and against the multiple uses allowed on federal land - mining, oil and gas development, timber, grazing and recreation.

Under the Bush administration, that is no longer happening, said Ted Zukoski, an attorney with the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice.

The Utah decision illustrates that the agency has decided "to ignore critical new information gathered over the past decade about wilderness character and the area's increased recreational value," Zukoski said.

How the BLM manages land is no small matter - the agency manages 262 million surface acres 11 Western states under its authority and less than 3 percent is protected as wilderness.

There are more than 23 million acres worthy of protection, conservationists say, but now the BLM has given up responsibility for identifying and safeguarding these wild places - leaving Congress with little guidance as to what merits formal protection.

"The Bush administration is racing to the finish line to drill and mine every last piece of wild land without providing enough time for Congress to act and permanently protect wilderness for future generations," Matz said. "Once developed for short term profits, America's natural heritage will never be eligible for wilderness designation."