Why exactly would the government spend $33 million to purchase land to create a wildlife refuge that they ultimately could not protect?
Bet the former landowner laughed all the way to the bank.
Bet the former landowner laughed all the way to the bank.Baca refuge open for drilling?
By Erin Emery
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 12/19/2007 06:07:23 AM MST
"You and I cannot take a hike on the refuge. ... But a company can come in and cut roads, put up 120-foot
rigs, bring several hundred-thousand-pound tankers back and forth ... and put 10-acre well pads on
wetlands." Aurielle Andhara, San Luis Valley Citizens Alliance (Special to The Post / Chuck Bigger)
A Canadian energy exploration company plans to drill natural gas test wells on the Baca National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Great Sand Dunes National Park complex. San Luis Valley residents are outraged that the 92,000-acre refuge, recently acquired by taxpayers for $33 million to protect groundwater, delicate habitats and migratory birds, could now be open to drilling.
"There's a very strong sentiment of wanting to declare this area a no-drill zone," said Aurielle Andhara, executive director of the San Luis Valley Citizens Alliance. "We are looking at the devastation of one of the last pristine areas in our state."
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected within two weeks to release a draft environmental assessment that will determine whether Lexam Energy Exploration can move forward with plans to drill or whether a comprehensive Environmental Impact Study is needed.
The company wants to drill 14,000-foot wells about 5 miles southeast of Crestone. The refuge consists of wetlands, sagebrush and riparian lands, as well as sand dunes, forested areas and several thousand acres of irrigated land.
Unlike the Roan Plateau, where the Bureau of Land Management owns the land and the mineral rights and must decide whether to lease those rights, Lexam owns 100 percent of the mineral rights. The company owned 75 percent of the hyrdrocarbon rights and Conoco Phillips owned the remaining 25 percent long before the land was a national wildlife refuge.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has given Lexam permission to drill two wells. A permit application for a third well is pending.
Andhara said drilling should be delayed — at a minimum — until a comprehensive management plan for the refuge, not expected to be completed until 2011, is done.
"You and I cannot take a hike on the refuge because it would be considered too risky to the surface of the refuge because there is not a comprehensive management plan in place," Andhara said. "But a company can come in and cut roads, put up 120-foot rigs, bring several hundred-thousand-pound tankers back and forth and back and forth, diesel engines, evaporation pits, and put 10-acre well pads on wetlands."
She said that for the sake of good stewardship, the drilling plans should be delayed until the management plan is in place.
Earlier this year, Lexam conducted a three-dimensional seismic survey of rock formations below the surface of the refuge. The company said its total prospect area is more than 2,100 acres. It would take about 75 days to drill a test well.
'A strategic asset'
On its website, the company told possible investors that the "potential of the prospect is promising." "Lexam's Baca Oil and Gas Project contains all of the ingredients necessary to make this an attractive, frontier exploration play. A discovery would turn Lexam's 100,000-acre land position into a strategic asset capable of adding substantially to the oil and gas reserves of participating companies."
Steffan Spears, vice president of strategic development for the company, said Lexam doesn't know how much natural gas may be extracted until test wells are drilled.
"You really can't tell because this area has not been tested before," Spears said. U.S. Fish and Wildlife asked for an environmental assessment only after a lawsuit was filed by the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council. The council alleged in the suit that Fish and Wildlife had not complied with the National Environmental Policy Act. A federal judge agreed.
Residents in the San Luis Valley say a full-fledged Environmental Impact Statement should have been completed.
Fish and Wildlife's Dean Rundle, refuge supervisor for the mountain zone, said that if the agency thinks it is obvious that there will be significant impact on the human environment, they ask for a statement directly.
"In this case, we didn't think it was that clear and we chose to do an environmental assessment first to determine whether that would be necessary."
It is not U.S. Fish and Wildlife's call to say "yes or not to gas exploration," said Mike Blenden, project leader for the San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
"What our role is is minimizing surface impacts to the National Wildlife Refuge. That would be the case for any landowner," Blenden said.
Preserving the Baca
David Robbins, general counsel to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, has worked for at least two decades to preserve the Baca. He is angered by those who have criticized the district for not buying mineral rights during negotiations. He doesn't recall whether the district even had the option to buy the rights.
"I'm clear that if they were, they were at such a price that it was impossible for any of us to ever fund the purchase. It was a question of do we buy the Baca and create a park or don't we if severed minerals were the issue," Robbins said.
U.S. Rep. John Salazar sent a letter dated Dec. 7 to Jay Slack, regional director for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and said he was disappointed to learn the mineral rights were not acquired when the refuge was established.
"While I understand that Lexam owns the mineral estate, and therefore has a right to reasonable access to explore that estate, I have grave concerns about potential negative impacts to air, water and wildlife on the federal stewardship lands of the Baca," Salazar wrote.
Salazar wrote that Fish and Wildlife has a "duty and responsibility to take every possible measure to protect these lands."
Salazar asked Fish and Wildlife to negotiate with the company to drill in pre-existing corridors, to use double-casings where drilling may have contact with the aquifer, to have minimal impact on wildlife and air quality and take methods to mitigate the visual impact on the land.
Erin Emery: 719-522-1360 or [email protected]
