Today, the Bureau of Land Management finalized its resource management plan/final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction field offices, which will determine how 2 million acres of land in western Colorado is managed for decades.
This plan is a court-ordered update to 2015 plans that short-changed wildlands and the climate. Unfortunately, the supplemental plan still does not take the necessary steps to address the climate crisis. According to Heather Sauls at the Bureau, under the plan, “[n]ew oil and gas leasing could continue on approximately 85% of acres with high potential for oil and gas resources in both field offices.” The plan scales up conservation measures in certain areas by providing additional protections for some of the region’s most sensitive wildlands. Despite expanding conservation areas, the plan prioritizes extractive development over protection of natural resources.
“While we appreciate the final plan’s focus on protections for public lands and conservation of important public resources, we are deeply disappointed at the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to once again forgo this critical opportunity to address the climate crisis through its long-term land use management decisions,” said Morgan O’Grady, staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “Conserving sensitive wild places while authorizing widespread fossil fuel extraction that will worsen the climate crisis and the wildfires, drought, and deadly heat waves that are themselves contributing to these lands’ fragility exemplifies the incoherence of policies that aim to please everyone. The Bureau’s decision to adopt a final alternative that was presented at a late stage and that opens approximately 30% more lands to fluid mineral development than the prior preferred alternative is particularly troubling, as is the agency’s continued refusal to even consider closure of the planning area to new leasing.”
The Bureau selected a new alternative for its final plan, Alternative G, which is a combination of management prescriptions from the alternatives in the draft SEIS. Alternative G scales up wildland conservation in key areas, but fails to protect resources in areas with the highest potential for future oil and gas development. The final plan closes areas with no or low oil and gas potential to future leasing, with the exception of more than 190,000 acres in the Grand Junction Field Office that it leaves available for future helium development. Helium is a nonrenewable resource that is developed using the same leasing and development methods as oil and gas. There are existing leases and producing infrastructure in the area that already provide adequate access to helium, and the area has significant overlap with high-priority wildlands and wildlife habitat. Conservation interests are concerned that leaving this location open to future industrial development unnecessarily threatens wildlands and wildlife in the name of speculative leasing.
During the comment period for the proposed plan, conservationists generated responses from nearly 6,000 community members. Nearly 85 businesses and more than 25 elected officials on the Western Slope signed letters in support of closures to new leasing and increased conservation management.
Contact:
Morgan O’Grady, Western Environmental Law Center, 703-973-2585, gro.w1729900298alnre1729900298tsew@1729900298ydarg1729900298o1729900298
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