A lot has happened in the last two days:
State gets time to review Roan plan
By Denver Post Staff
Article Last Updated: 08/03/2007
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has agreed to give state officials more time to comment on the Bureau of Land Management's plan to allow drilling on Colorado's Roan Plateau, Sen. Ken Salazar announced today.
The Colorado Democrat said he would lift his "hold" on BLM Director nominee James Caswell after Kempthorne agreed to his request for a 120-day extension of time for the state review and comment on the Resource Management Plan for the Roan Plateau.
"This is an important first step in working towards a cooperative relationship between the State of Colorado, the BLM and the Interior Department with respect to how we move forward on the Roan Plateau and responsible oil shale development and oil and gas leasing issues," Salazar said in a release.
"Secretary Kempthorne gave me his commitment that the BLM will respond in good faith to the comments and concerns raised during the review period and address them."
Salazar's block of Caswell's appointment was a last-ditch attempt to provide more time to comment on the plan.
Salazar - along with Democratic Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar - took up the cause of Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat.
Ritter came into office as the BLM was finalizing its Roan plan, which was based on one shaped by then-Gov. Bill Owens' administration. Ritter wanted 120 days to review that plan. The agency had set a timetable that allowed less than 30 days for comment.
"We're going to take this time to carefully and thoughtfully review all of the issues and we take the federal government at its word that it will give serious consideration to any issues that we raise," said Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Gov. Ritter.
After seven years of study, hearings and comment from state agencies, the Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management finalized a plan in June that authorizes up to 1,570 new natural-gas wells on and around the Roan Plateau over 20 years.
It projects up to 13 well pads and 210 wells on top of the Roan.
The landmark 180 miles west of Denver contains large reserves of natural gas and oil shale and is home to some of the state's largest deer and elk herds, mountain lions, bears, peregrine falcons, rare plants and a genetically distinct strain of cutthroat trout.
DOW wants Roan issues to be put on 'front burner'
By BOBBY MAGILL The Daily Sentinel
Saturday, August 04, 2007
As oil and gas industry advocates and Western Colorado’s Democratic congressmen prepare to battle over energy development atop the Roan Plateau, Colorado Division of Wildlife officials say they are concerned people are ignoring the needs of wildlife at the base of the Roan.
If passed, the pending energy bill amendment, sponsored by Colorado Democratic Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar will protect the top of the plateau from the impact of drilling, while doing nothing for the land beneath the plateau’s rim.
“That’s what we’ve heard the most about,” Salazar spokesman Eric Wortman said. “You have to do what you can get through Congress. If we tried to do something that broad, we’d have considerably more opposition.”
But, DOW spokesman Randy Hampton said, “The top of the plateau from a wildlife perspective is not as important as the base of the Roan. The base of the plateau is critical winter range (for deer and elk).”
Below the rim is where the animals go in winter, he said, because there is too much snow on top.
“If they hammer the bottom, there won’t be any wildlife on the top,” he said.
But in all the talk about the fate of the plateau since the Bureau of Land Management in June approved a plan opening the plateau to energy development, little has been said about the need to keep energy development from harming land below the rim, he said.
The DOW, Hampton said, wants to keep the base of the plateau on the “front burner.”
Udall said Friday it’s important for the energy industry, residents and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to help ensure wildlife habitat below the rim is protected.
But as Udall and Salazar’s provision in the energy bill calls for energy companies to access the plateau’s natural gas from private property adjacent to public land atop of the plateau, so too does the BLM require many of the minerals below the rim to be accessed from afar.
The Roan plan calls for 22,603 acres below the rim to be protected under no surface occupancy, or NSO, stipulations, which means structures or scars on the land lasting more than two years would be prohibited. New pipelines, however, are fair game because the land above them can be quickly revegetated, according to the plan.
An additional 9,600 acres below the rim could also be off limits to drilling rigs if the BLM decides later this year to protect four “areas of critical environmental concern,” including the Anvil Points area.
DOW Regional Manager Ron Velarde called the no surface occupancy stipulations for the base of the plateau better than no protections for wildlife.
But, he said, “it’s a combination, not only just the drilling. It’s the interstate, it’s the fence, the building of homes. The cumulative effect is what we’re concerned about.”
Udall said that’s his concern, too.
“If I had my druthers, the entire Roan Plateau — the top, the sides, the wintering range — would be off-limits to anything but appropriate recreation and wildlife maintenance habitat, but that’s not the situation,” he said. “A lot of compromises have been made.”
Despite Udall’s preference for no drilling, his spokeswoman, Heather Fox, said Udall advocates for responsible energy development on the plateau.
The House is expected to vote today on the Roan Plateau provision of the energy bill, Wortman said.
Meanwhile, Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said Friday he will resign at the end of the year to become president of Americans for American Energy, a nonprofit group planning to launch an offensive against those trying to keep the Roan Plateau from being drilled.
According to its Web site, www.americansforamericanenergy.org, the group is focused almost entirely on opening the Roan Plateau and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy development.
Schnacke said the group is comprised of a coalition of people both inside and outside the energy industry angry that lawmakers and environmentalists are trying to shut out oil and gas development on the Roan Plateau.
“We’re importing 60 percent of our oil from overseas and we’re facing this onslaught of political pressure to shut down domestic gas development in the Rocky Mountain states,” he said. “That’s just wrong. We’re concerned where that policy is going to take us. I don’t know where we’re going to go.”
Energy bill which bans drilling on Roan passes House
Measure would prohibit drilling on public lands
By AMY HAMILTON The Daily Sentinel
Sunday, August 05, 2007
A massive energy bill with an amendment to prohibit drilling on public lands atop the Roan Plateau passed Saturday in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The 786-page 2007 Energy Independence Act, with components focused on improving technology and modernizing infrastructure to produce energy, now heads to the Senate for approval.
On Monday, Colorado Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall made amendments to the bill that included language to prohibit surface occupancy on the Roan. Gas leases would still be allowed but would have to be made by directional drilling from drill pads on private property.
“This will allow BLM to receive royalty and bonus bids, and will allow the industry to extract the minerals, but will not allow any drilling on the federal lands atop the Roan Plateau,” according to a statement from Salazar’s office.
On Friday, Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne agreed to give Colorado 120 days to review and comment on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to drill on the Roan. The decision followed more than a month of letters and conversations Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., had with Kempthorne.
John Salazar said in a statement that passage of the energy bill in the House gives teeth to the leasing delay.
“While I was pleased to learn that the Interior Department finally decided to delay leasing the top of the Roan Plateau, I believe we must continue to strike a balance, and the language protecting the Roan in the energy bill does just that,” the news release said.
