Book Cliffs to be Fracked

[grizzly_]

Utah's SITLA (State Trust Lands) just leased 100,000 acres of Book Cliffs, much of it Roadless, for gas exploration.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56784250-90/acres-book-decision-lands.html.csp

It's a sad day for Utah Sportsman.

 

[CabinFever]

I just started building points mainly looking at that area. Bummed

 

[sbhooper]

The roads will be the bad part. Roadless areas are getting hard to find.

 

[Big Fin]

Very frustrating, given how long the hunting community has been working on a deal to trade or consolidate these premium wildlife lands, only to have a backroom deal pull the rug. Wonder why they decided to honor the request of Anadarko to keep it quiet and deny the request of the hunting community to have more public discussion and transparency.

And people wonder why hunters are oppossed to states taking control of Federal lands within their boundaries. Here is a good example of how some states seem to have the abilty to cut some sweet deals without a lot of public input.

Maybe Anadarko will prove us all wrong and be an exemplary steward of the lands and do this with no impact to wildlife. It would be nice if it happened that way, but if I had to bet, my money would be on the other side of the table.

Years of work and effort by hunters to find a wildlife-friendly solution just went by the wayside with that deal by the Utah State Lands Board.

 

[grizzly_]

Gov. Herbert has asked SITLA to reconsider. Hopefully he is successful.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56789418-78/utah-book-sitla-cliffs.html.csp

 

[OriginalOscar]

Town hall meeting tonight with the state legislatures. They want to talk education guess what I plan to talk about?

 

[sagebrush]

I dunno, Unit 2B in NM, hands down the best mule deer unit in the state and becoming one of the better elk units. Nearly the enitre unit is an operating gas field. The one thing NMG&F does do, is close most of the gas roads to vehicular access during the hunting seasons. Good for the nation's energy supply, great for the local economy and a workable solution for hunters.

 

[jryoung]

Was the development of 2B a roadless area that was leased through a backdoor deal too?

When roads are built you don't get to take them away.

 

[Ben Lamb]

This is what state management of public lands is.

Get used to it or fight back.

 

[Oak]

I dunno, Unit 2B in NM, hands down the best mule deer unit in the state and becoming one of the better elk units. Nearly the enitre unit is an operating gas field. The one thing NMG&F does do, is close most of the gas roads to vehicular access during the hunting seasons. Good for the nation's energy supply, great for the local economy and a workable solution for hunters.

It's only the best unit in the state once weather pushes the deer out of Colorado. Do you think development and fragmentation of all that winter range has had any effect on the carrying capacity?

 

[BRI]

Just a question here and hoping for some open discussion. Not looking to start an argument from those here that like to argue. I don't really have a side in this but I certainly can understand both sides of the issue. A search on Trust Lands in Utah shows lands were granted to the State of Utah through the enabling act of 1894. These lands were to be held in trust to support schools and institutions and the trust mandate is fairly clear to provide the largest legitimate return to the trust. Are these lands held in trust to support schools and institutions?

Wildlife habitat value is pretty hard to quantify but if leaving these lands as such results in less revenue to the trust, wouldn't that be in direct conflict with the trust mandate? So what is a good solution to maintain the trust mandate but then protect the area?

 

[jryoung]

Hopefully this link works, in short several conservation groups have been working on a land exchange for some time.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.519512784788372.1073741838.148205145252473&type=3

 

[fowladdict]

It's only the best unit in the state once weather pushes the deer out of Colorado. Do you think development and fragmentation of all that winter range has had any effect on the carrying capacity?

Yup, what Oak said. The resident deer population has taken quite a hit due to poaching as well.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Just a question here and hoping for some open discussion. Not looking to start an argument from those here that like to argue. I don't really have a side in this but I certainly can understand both sides of the issue. A search on Trust Lands in Utah shows lands were granted to the State of Utah through the enabling act of 1894. These lands were to be held in trust to support schools and institutions and the trust mandate is fairly clear to provide the largest legitimate return to the trust. Are these lands held in trust to support schools and institutions?

Wildlife habitat value is pretty hard to quantify but if leaving these lands as such results in less revenue to the trust, wouldn't that be in direct conflict with the trust mandate? So what is a good solution to maintain the trust mandate but then protect the area?

You hit the nail on the head. That's what most state lands in the west have been used for: School trusts. To date, the prevailing wisdom has leaned in the direction that you are pointing too: maximize profit for the trust.

However, there is a growing sentiment that includes many sporting organizations that have had to fight tooth and nail to get access to state lands that says the value to the trust must be looked at in terms of a broader economic landscape than just dollars in, dollars out in a fiscal year. These efforts are focused more on the long term economic picture associated with public lands and the economies that use them, i.e. hunting, recreation, etc. There is some data that shows the conservation of state lands could lead to higher returns later down the road than simply developing them once, and then letting cows back on (not opposed to grazing at all, btw).

 

[bonedogg]

up here in Canada, oil & gas is not detrimental to hunting. It provides access to areas that were not accessable prior, pipelines provide the first green grass in the spring and dont forget its agriculture and development that has brought the critters back, not the vast amounts of untouched prairie. When your state has more blacktop roads, less taxes and jobs for most that are willing to work, the hunting falls into place. just my two cents and Im sure someone will bring out the rubber gloves :hump:

 

[Big Fin]

Wildlife habitat value is pretty hard to quantify but if leaving these lands as such results in less revenue to the trust, wouldn't that be in direct conflict with the trust mandate? So what is a good solution to maintain the trust mandate but then protect the area?

That's the tough question, BRI. A question that groups have been working on for years, and working especially hard for the last two or three years.

Most thought a good solution would be to let the state land board trade out of these lands to lands that could produce similar royalty revenue, without the negative impacts that could happen to wildlife values.

This surprise deal, struck without knowledge of many groups who have spent years working on a good solution, pretty much put and end to that idea. Maybe it could be resurrected, but unlikely.

Had this been done in the light of full disclosure and not some dark room deal, it probably would have a different outcome as far as reaction from the groups who had invested so much time on finding alternatives.

Trust is not gained when groups are working in full public openness, striving to accomodate all sides on a very difficult agreement, and then a state agency strikes a deal to negotiate with a private company in complete confidentiality, and one day those hunting groups open a newspaper to find out a deal was struck without public comment and completely negating the work these hunting groups had invested. No other way to state that - just stinks of backroom palm greasing.

For me, when any group or any state agency thinks they need to operate in darkness when public resources are at stake, my "BS" meter maxes out. If it is a public asset, public policy, and public interest at stake, it needs to be done in the open. For those on a state committee to do that, seems like bad business. You are their to represent the public, so it seems you should have nothing to hide from the public.

And as much as some will defend the record of Anadarko, and I am glad Anadarko has a track record that leaves a positive impression, the mere fact that they asked for (and received) complete secrecy, does nothing to give me comfort that they don't have something they wanted kept quiet. Such secrecy inherently raises my suspicions, especially when requested on a topic where all sides know that large amounts of effort are being invested by hunting groups to try find a better alternative.

I guess time will tell. Will Anadarko be a shining example of who energy can be extracted in areas with extremely high wildlife values? I hope so.

Will they Anadarko the poster child for all that is wrong with the way energy companies have excelled at influencing state and Federal agencies to accomodate their interests at the expense of the public interest? I hope not.

Regardless of how Anadarko operates in this exploration, this kind of deal is the poster child of why I do not want states taking over Federal public lands in the west. This example is in Utah - a terrible example of how a state agency should operate when representing the interest of their citizens.

Utah also has legislation demanding that Federal lands be conveyed to the state. Really, with this kind of a track record of how the state is going to represent their citizens?

Colorado has a similar effort afoot to take over Federal lands in CO. For those who don't know or aren't aware, in Colorado, you cannot hunt state lands unless the state has leased the hunting/access rights. Imagine if all the Federal lands in CO went to the state of CO. All that public land we now have would only be accessible if the budget-strained agency of Colorado Parks and Wildlife could lease back all the hunting/access rights from the state land board. How much hunting access you suppose would be lost in that state take over of public lands?

And now, in Montana, we have the legislature funding a study and survey that leads exactly down the same path. I might lose this bet, but I will bet anyone and everyone a DQ Blizzard that in the 2015 legislative session, a Montana legislator, surely one of the fringe operators, will use that study and survey to support their effort to follow UT and CO in demanding Federal lands be turned over to the state.

 

[bonedogg]

Maybe the best way of dealing with it is to make the standards higher that the oil companies must comply with and set up better environmetal policies to coincide. make it a win win for all, not just the rich guys fronting the cash.

 

[bonedogg]

Its nice using a pumpjack sometimes to make a stalk

 

[BuzzH]

All I can say is its extremely hard to find a compromise in situations like these that mitigate the negative impacts.

Those that claim development of an oil field will result in better hunting and wont harm wildlife populations are full of crap. Pretty tough to mitigate the roads, well pads, noxious weeds, increased access, poaching, disturbance, etc. etc.

I've yet to see a developed oil patch that resulted in a net gain for hunting and wildlife.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

I know nothing about this deal or even what Play they are after, but I will say that if it goes ahead with today's technology with Directional Drilling and the like the impact will be much less than if it was done 15 years ago. We are drilling wells 330' off the south line of a section and the bottom hole will be 330' from the north line of the same section. I have also been doing some laterals that stretch close to 9000', that really reduces the footprint of the exploration companies. The backroom deals and such, well only a few people ever know about those. John