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NEWS RELEASE December 4, 2008 BLM Rushes to Approve Plan Landowners, sportsmen and residents of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah are urging the Bush Administration not to sacrifice the state’s natural resources and long-term economic growth by rushing to offer up public lands to major oil companies for oil shale development. “This eleventh-hour attempt to grease the skids to auction off our federal mineral rights to multi-national energy companies before we understand the full impacts oil shale development is an affront to the people of Western Colorado and the entire Rocky Mountain West,” said Steve Torbit, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. Last Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved last-minute amendments to resource management plans opening approximately 2 million acres of public land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to commercial oil shale leasing. The decision came despite protests from the governors of Colorado and Wyoming, members of Congress and local communities groups and thousands of public comments opposing the rush to lease the land. “The BLM completely ignored Governor Freudenthal’s request to keep oil shale development out of Adobe Town, which the state has designated as Very Rare or Uncommon,” said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “The destruction of public lands associated with oil shale development would be a disaster for sage grouse and other wildlife, not to mention the enormous air pollution and water consumption problems that would follow.” “We need the results from current work on private property and the research and development sites before we rush headlong into commercial leasing,” said former Grand Junction Mayor Jim Spehar. “Even companies on the cutting edge of oil shale technology say they are at least a decade away from knowing whether or not this will be a viable industry. We need answers about water needs, other impacts and the true potential for production. “ “The Bush administration has fast tracked commercial leasing as an early holiday present for Big Oil, despite the wishes of communities that the oil shale program proceeds slowly with foresight and caution,” added Suzanne O’Neill, the Colorado Wildlife Federation executive director. “This record of decision on the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement does not reflect the thousands of comments the BLM received on the plan outlining the common-sense need to go slow, find out if the technology works and gauge the economic and health and water impacts that our communities will face.” “The industry needs to pay its own way and ensure we know the impacts from the research and development sites before we rush headlong into commercial leasing, O’Neill said. Craig Thompson was an oil shale worker in the 1970s, an oil shale groundwater researcher in the 1980s, and is now Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science at Western Wyoming Community College. Thompson is also the chair-elect of the National Wildlife Federation Board of Directors. “Almost a century of failed oil shale development efforts have proven two outcomes: The resulting kerogen is a highly-polluting, low-heat and generally poor excuse for a fuel, and the impact on scarce water supplies, global climate change and precious wildlife habitat is truly threatening,” Thompson concluded. “The rush to push oil shale in the waning days of the Bush administration can only be driven by speculation and can only benefit Bush’s hydrocarbon cronies.” Veteran hunter, outfitter and Silt resident Bob Elderkin worked in Colorado during the first oil shale boom. That boom went bust in May, 1982 when Exxon suddenly closed down it’s $5 billion dollar operation in the Piceance Basin, an event now remembered as “Black Sunday” for the economic devastation caused to the West Slope’s economy. “The technology that Shell would use to produce oil from shale would turn the Piceance Basin into a pool table because they have to drill wells so tightly together,” said Bob Elderkin, a former BLM oil and gas regulator now with the Colorado Mule Deer Association. “The amount of water that would be used, the total surface disturbance to key wildlife habitat and the amount of energy needed to produce oil from shale all need to be understood before any leasing occurs or royalty rates are set,” Elderkin said. “The only way to ensure this process is done right is for our new leadership in Washington to put the brakes on this rush to lease and to reopen and reevaluate these fast-tracked plans so we don’t leap before we look,” said Larry Soderberg, a Parachute resident and retired engineer. “As of today, oil shale production cannot show a positive gain in energy—much less satisfy concerns about water and habitat,” Soderberg said. “Until they do, leasing of public lands is absurd.” Contact information:
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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073 (307) 742-7978 - carmi@voiceforthewild.org |