Bureau of Land Misuse

Drilling on Roan could negatively affect wildlife

Trout Unlimited is concerned that "development could result in impacts that would severely harm or even wipe out the sensitive populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout on the Roan," said Corey Fisher, energy field coordinator for Trout Unlimited.   http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/sports/stories/2007/11/14/111407_db_OUT_roan_WWW.html    

By DAVE BUCHANAN The Daily Sentinel Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bruce Gordon banked his small plane and stared down at a line of drill pads marching across the top of the Roan Plateau. Gordon's attention was fixed at the sight of the six scars on the plateau's winter-bare landscape, an umbilical road tying them together like knots on a rope, each one edging along an unnamed ridge toward the westernmost edge of the Naval Oil Shale Reserve.

"I can't believe it," said Gordon, the lead pilot and president of EcoFlight, a wildlands conservation group based in Aspen. "I flew over here earlier this summer and there's so much more development now. It's like a land rush."

Gordon was leading one of his group's semi-regular trips across the Roan Plateau, giving various public groups the rare opportunity to see first-hand the level of development happening up there.

As energy development continues to ravage parts of western Colorado, and in particular creep closer to the still-unmarked top of the Roan Plateau, more voices are expressing opposition to the Bureau of Land Management's energy leasing policies.

"The BLM is becoming a single-use agency," said Ron Velarde, northwest region manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "I don't blame the energy companies, I blame the BLM for letting this happen on our public lands."

Trout Unlimited is concerned that "development could result in impacts that would severely harm or even wipe out the sensitive populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout on the Roan," said Corey Fisher, energy field coordinator for Trout Unlimited. He quoted a BLM analysis that said effects could be irreversible, "especially those that eliminate genetically unique resources ... such as genetically pure Colorado River cutthroat trout."

While most of the drilling around and on the Roan Plateau is occurring on private land, some is being done on public lands around the base of the plateau. Some interests have written off the bottom of the cliffs as a quasi-sacrifice zone to energy development, but the DOW is quick to differ.

"The base of the plateau is critical (big game) winter range," DOW spokesman Randy Hampton told Daily Sentinel reporter Bobby Magill. "If (the energy companies) hammer the bottom, there won't be any wildlife on top."

Still, much of the focus now is on preserving what little unmarred habitat remains on the top of the plateau. The federal lands up there haven't yet been leased, although that may occur as soon as late next summer.

Wildlife managers, hunters, anglers and conservationists all know that once the BLM opens the plateau to drilling, the effects from development will forever change the Roan Plateau.

The best option, obviously, would be to disallow any energy development in the still untouched parts of the Roan, but that's unlikely to happen.

What critics of the drilling would like to see is moderation, a slow staging of the development so effects could be properly addressed. Stipulations and restrictions could address such problems as controlling runoff, habitat fragmentation, and loss of public access before they happen.

And, Velarde emphasized, these are public lands, no matter how often that point is overlooked by pro-development interests.

However, once the development begins, the constant traffic, noise and disturbance compromise wildlife and recreational uses to where the land becomes a industrial zone and little else.

Part of the 73,600 acres of federal land on the plateau won't be developed, said BLM spokesman David Boyd. Some of it is too steep or in riparian areas and some of it is managed with NSO (no surface occupancy) restrictions.

"Nothing on the top of the plateau is closed to leasing but a little less than half of it is NSO," Boyd said. That means in order to extract the gas, a company has to use off-site directional drilling.

Other restrictions Boyd listed from the BLM's Roan management plan include "staging" the development along the ridge lines and making sure one well pad is finished and reclamation is under way before another pad can be started.

Of the leasable federal lands, approximately 34,758 acres, only 1 percent can be disturbed at any one time, Boyd said.

"We think most of the development will be accessible by existing roads but some of the roads probably will have to be improved," Boyd said. "We think this will motivate them to reclaim things more quickly."

But it's the cumulative effects that cause the most concern for sportsmen and conservationists.

It's long-lasting effects on water, wildlife and air quality. A clear day is rare in western Garfield County because of the dusty haze from constant traffic on gravel and dirt roads. A glance last week at upper Parachute Creek revealed clouds of dust reminiscent of nuclear bomb tests 50 years ago.

Uncontrolled runoff from well pads and roads could damage or destroy isolated populations of cutthroat trout, especially if development reaches down the sides of the ridges.

"The key is to protect the watersheds from ridge top to ridge top," Fisher said. "Gas development (currently) is not precluded in headwaters of the (cutthroat) stream reaches."

Velarde said the 1 percent disturbance limit and requiring mitigation on pads before others are built might soothe some of the DOW's concerns.

"But if they are able to drill all over the Roan Plateau, we have problems," he said.

A provision introduced by Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar in the House-approved version of the 2007 Energy Bill includes NSO restrictions across the top of the plateau while allowing off-site (directional) drilling to tap the resources below.

As Gordon's small plane flew across the plateau's well-drilled south face, his guests looked down on a couple of new, biggie-sized well pads at the base of the cliffs, where two rigs were working side-by-side. Someone remembered that Williams Energy RMT recently announced its plans to start cluster drilling.

Gordon sighed and headed his plane for home.

"It's a cluster all right," he observed.

Small stream cause of big fuss in state

The Upper Ark district protested the expansion of the Badger Creek water right at a March meeting of the CWCB in Canon City. In the months since, Assistant Attorney General Amy Stengel and Trout Unlimited attorney Drew Peternell have argued that no augmentation water rights are at risk by increasing the in-stream flow rate to 5.5 cubic feet per second (about 3.5 million gallons a day) from the current 3 cfs (about 1.9 million gallons a day). http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1194623125/8

By CHRIS WOODKA THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A small stream in western Fremont County is causing a big ruckus as the state ponders expansion of a water right to protect its flows.

Expanding the water right on Badger Creek, a 30-mile-long stream near Howard, to include higher flows is supported by the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Department of Wildlife, Trout Unlimited and other environmental groups.

The move is opposed by the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, which says increasing protected flows for Badger Creek could impede augmentation plans for future wells in unspecified locations.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board, the agency which approves in-stream flows, will consider the Badger Creek issue again at its meeting next week. A three-hour block for a hearing is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 14, at the Golden Hotel, 800 11th St., Golden.

The Upper Ark district protested the expansion of the Badger Creek water right at a March meeting of the CWCB in Canon City. In the months since, Assistant Attorney General Amy Stengel and Trout Unlimited attorney Drew Peternell have argued that no augmentation water rights are at risk by increasing the in-stream flow rate to 5.5 cubic feet per second (about 3.5 million gallons a day) from the current 3 cfs (about 1.9 million gallons a day).

"We don't think there is that much water there every year," said Terry Scanga, general manager of the Upper Ark district. "All we're asking for is that they provide a number that won't take the whole flow."

Upper Ark said its augmentation plan incorporates a flow of 0.25 cfs (about 160,000 gallons a day) and suggested a "variable decree" that would account for that amount, Scanga said.

"I guess it's a matter of when is enough, enough, to maintain a good habitat?" Scanga said.

Stengel, in her brief to the CWCB, says the state's calculations of the flow of the creek show that the flow of Badger Creek exceeds the Upper Ark's potential domestic water supply requirements more than half of the time, with roughly enough water to sustain 117-900 homes, depending on lawn irrigation.

Beyond the simple water availability, however, the state said the water would preserve a natural environment in a 17-mile reach of the stream below a perennial spring. The Upper Ark also has not demonstrated how the proposed state water right would injure its right, Stengel said.

"The subject reach of Badger Creek is an exceptionally pristine section of stream supporting a thriving brown trout population," Stengel wrote, adding that 90 percent of the stream is on public land.

In its statement, Trout Unlimited pointed out the expansion of the in-stream flow would be junior to existing rights held by the Upper Ark.

"It's speculative. What they're really doing is protecting future growth in the upper reaches of Badger Creek," Peternell said. "The Upper Ark is protecting hypothetical future users, but this does nothing to injure their water right."

The Upper Ark is arguing the stream is intermittent in stretches, even below the spring, which is disputed by the Division of Wildlife and Trout Unlimited.

Reed Dils of the Collegiate Peaks Chapter of Trout Unlimited said there are occasions when flash floods move debris to some sections of the stream and temporarily "bury" them, but the flows of Badger Creek soon cut the channel again. A big flood in 2004 disrupted part of the stream, but Dils was able to find fish above and below the point before and after it reopened.

"It's an extraordinary place, and an in-stream flow is needed," Dils said.

The BLM has worked for years with Fremont County residents to protect the public lands on Badger Creek by cleaning up the area and restricting motor vehicle access.

What’s worse than an unethical hunter?

 Writers on the Range - by Pat Wray All-terrain vehicles aren't good or bad in themselves; it's all about context. When my son was lost for an entire night in the mountains of northeast Oregon, search and rescue volunteers from Union County showed up on their ATVs and set out to bring him home. I was never so glad to see machinery in my life. They helped find him later that morning.

Then there are those other occasions. A few years ago, I was slogging through deep snow near the Malheur River east of Juntura, Ore., in search of chukars -- Eurasian partridges -- when I heard the distinctive growl of ATVs. I looked up to see two of them cresting a hill above me.

I had a bad feeling about their presence in a place with no established trails. My concern was proven justified a few minutes later when I cut across their track. The two machines had simply driven straight uphill from the river, taking advantage of the deep snow to drive on top of sagebrush and bunchgrasses. The weight of the machines crushed the sagebrush, leaving a trail of shattered branches and trunks. Where the snow was shallow, tires had cut through to the soil, gouging it out and spraying it across the snow.

By the time I headed back that evening, the ATVs were gone. They had, for the most part, followed the same track down the hill. At least they hadn't carved a new track across the virgin desert, but their second trip completed the destruction of the sagebrush, breaking it down so completely that when the snow melted, it would no longer be high enough to prevent ATV travel. Predictably, ATV drivers began using the track regularly, and now it is a deeply rutted scar from which hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of dirt washes directly toward the Malheur River.

Another time, after I had killed an elk near Enterprise, Ore., and was hiking back to my vehicle to pick up a backpack to begin hauling the meat, I met the rancher who owned the land on which I'd been hunting, and he offered to help bring the animal out -- an offer I quickly accepted. We hauled the elk up to an established trail, loaded it onto his ATV trailer and pulled it back to his house. The rancher and his machine saved me four roundtrip hikes of three miles each. It would have taken me a long, exhausting day.

Last year was a different experience. I was hunting chukars on the Owyhee River down in southeastern Oregon. I came up out of the canyon far from any road and worked along the rim into the wind with my pointer, Sadie. The dog became almost immediately "birdy" and began moving slowly and carefully. Her careful approach didn't help. A covey of 25 birds flushed almost 100 yards away and bailed off into the canyon. Bad luck, I thought. Two hundred yards later, a second covey of similar size flushed wild, this time nearly 125 yards away. Over the next mile the same thing happened again and again.

Then I found the cause: ATV tracks running along the canyon rim. Hunters using ATVs were busting through the desert, creating their own trails so they didn't have to walk while they hunted some of the best chukar ground in North America. And it was flat! What incredible laziness! The birds had been harassed into a level of paranoia I'd not seen anywhere else in the state, even where hunter numbers were much higher.

It's true that most of the habitat damage done by ATVs isn't caused by hunters, but by a small percentage of recreational riders. Their concept of the outdoors is a warped desire for a place where they can go fast without regard for laws or for anyone else around them. But hunters are far from innocent. Far too many have made the unethical use of ATVs the linchpin of their hunting experience, and instead of confining their driving to established trails as the laws require, they've succumbed to the lure of the easy way.

"The hill is too steep, I'll just make my own trail." "I'll just ride along until the dogs point the birds. Then I'll get out and walk." In following rationalizations like this, they damage both the game animals they pursue and the land on which wildlife depends.

In their slimy devotion to laziness, these hunters make one thing crystal-clear: The only thing worse than an unethical hunter is an unethical hunter on an ATV. And hunters like that are too stupid to know what they have lost.

Pat Wray is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an avid hunter and outdoor writer who lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

Instream flow proposals spark debate

by Tonya BinaSky-Hi Daily News November 7, 2007

During a meeting about instream flow recommendations Tuesday, philosophical differences over water bubbled to the surface, but Colorado Water Conservation Board and Bureau of Land Management staff were prepared.

    With various firming projects and water-clarity issues weighing on the West Slope’s shoulders, Grand County Commissioners told the agencies earlier that day, “We are a little uncomfortable when it comes to water.”

    The instream flow meeting, held at the County Road and Bridge building, was hosted by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) and the BLM. The BLM, as it does each year, has recommended segments of Grand County streams for further protection.

    The Conservation Board was formed in 1973, when the Colorado Legislature recognized “the need to correlate the activities of mankind with some reasonable preservation of the natural environment.”

    It is considered one of only two entities in Colorado that allows water rights for non-consumptive use. Before it, Colorado water law written in the mid-1800s had been based solely on beneficial use. The law did not recognize water rights for the purpose of merely of keeping water flowing in rivers.

    The laws “don’t fit today’s Colorado,” said Kirk Klancke, river advocate and president of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited.

    Klancke supports a “tweaking” of those laws to allow those with water rights the ability to keep them without being forced to consume — in other words, keep water rights for the river itself.

    “The CWCB flows were the first attempt to find environmental water,” Klancke said. Anyone can make recommendations for the state’s Instream Flow Program, which takes data from all interested parties — including its own staff— to assess whether a segment of a stream, river or even a lake should be protected.

    “What staff does is look at the science and make determinations on the natural environment, water availability and the material injury to other water right holders,” said Jeff Baessler, assistant section chief of the Conservation Board’s Stream and Lake Protection Section. “Staff looks at the recommendation and evaluates that from a scientific perspective.”

    The CWCB, made up of a member from each of Colorado’s seven water divisions and three more from the North Platte drainage, the city and county of Denver and the Department of Natural Resources, makes the final decision on those state water rights through a public process.

    In all, the state holds appropriations on 1,463 individual stream segments. That represents, 8,636 miles, which is about 29 percent of the rivers in all of Colorado.

    According to the Division of Wildlife, Colorado has 29,289 miles of continuously flowing rivers and streams.

In Grand County      In this year’s round of appropriations by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the BLM has recommended expanded instream flows on seven segments of streams in Grand County. The Division of Wildlife has recommended another.

    The streams on the list are: Arapaho Creek, Mule Creek, Rabbit Ears Creek, Troublesome Creek, Corral Creek, Beaver Creek, Willow Creek and Upper and Lower Troublesome Creek.

    Tuesday’s meeting started the public process of gathering more data. It also served to provide information to other water rights holders.

    Ranchers, county officials and river-protection advocates took the opportunity to talk about the streams they know.

    Several who attended the meeting hold water rights on those streams and worried about the repercussions of the state holding rights to more streamflows.

    Baessler explained that any rights appropriated this year would be junior to the rights of others, and unless others’ use of the water changes in some way, present-day water users will not be affected.

    But the instream flow program makes ranchers uncomfortable. Bill Thompson, water commissioner in Grand County’s water Division 5, whose wife Wendy is a third-generation rancher, said he recognized that this year’s appropriations wouldn’t affect ranchers’ irrigation practices now, but it’s the future people worry about.

    “CWCB is going to be in every case of any water right change in the future. They’re’ going to be there in the future, that’s the rub with ranchers,” he said in a phone interview.

    Ranchers, who each year face more challenges in their efforts to do business such as rising fuel prices, restrictions on grazing, weeds and water, are “original stewards of the land,” Thompson continued, and they care for the environment and its streams on which they depend for their livelihood.

    But, government bureaucracy makes “it harder to stay in business anymore,” he said. “Government bureaucracy is getting in the middle of streams that have survived for 100 years,” he said.

    During the meeting, Thompson asked Conservancy Board staff members, “I worry about the irrigators. What are you going to do next year?”

    Many river users agree that irrigation, which is said to return about 80 percent of the water back to rivers, is a better scenario for local rivers than trans-basin diversions. But instream flows with zero consumptive loss is even better for overall river health, Klancke said.

    Irrigation water returned to the rivers can have a higher salinity.

The process      According to state law, the CWCB is required to seek streamflow recommendations from the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. Such recommendations are considered part of federal agencies’ land stewardship.

    The BLM cycles its recommendations through each district of the state about every five years.

    From Tuesday’s meeting, Baessler said staff members gained valuable information from citizens about various streams, such as the amount of water and the senior rights on Corral Creek, as well as the amount of late-season flows on Beaver Creek.

    “My concern is that what you have now is sufficient. I seen no reason that you should have more just because you want more,” said Duane Scholl of Kremmling about Corral Creek.

    Because land is sold and people move on, Baessler said, the intent of the program is to keep streams healthy regardless of change to protect river life and water quality for the future.

    The analyses of the streams are being done prior to the holidays, followed by a contested hearing process in Denver in January, at which the public is encouraged to attend and express any concerns about streamflow recommendations. People then have until March 31 to file any notice of contest. In November, staff presents its final recommendation on the appropriations, with notice to all those who had contested.

    The CWCB then takes final action in May.

    Public comment is being accepted now.

    Toward the end of the public meeting, Baessler said the CWCB staff’s goal is to strike a balance between the different philosophies that naturally collide when it comes to water in Colorado’s rivers and streams.

    “We think we’re doing our job when Trout Unlimited and water users are both throwing rocks at us,” he said.

Drilling health concerns debated

Testimony in Washington suggests harmful effects Dennis Webb Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado November 1, 2007

A Colorado physician called government's failure to track and study potential health impacts related to energy development "a disgrace" Wednesday, during a congressional hearing that also included testimony by two people who say they became ill after living near gas development in Garfield County.Daniel Teitelbaum, a medical toxicologist and adjunct professor of environmental scientist at the Colorado School of Mines, was one of several witnesses to call for heightened environmental regulations of the oil and gas industry. He spoke before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington, D.C."I have watched, with growing concern, the widespread development of the oil and gas industry in our state in the absence of any rational public health oversight of the consequences of this development, and of any resource for the evaluation and treatment of human illnesses that have arisen and will arise as a consequence of these activities," Teitelbaum testified.

Also speaking were Steve Mobaldi and Susan Wallace-Babb (formerly Susan Haire), who both said they were forced to move from their homes after suffering from ill effects related to nearby natural gas development.

Mobaldi and his wife, Elizabeth "Chris" Mobaldi, suffered symptoms such as headaches and burning eyes that they believe were related to drilling, which occurred as close as 300 feet from their Rifle-area home. But Chris Mobaldi's maladies went further, including rashes and blisters, pituitary tumors and development of a severe speech disorder that includes pronouncing some words with a foreign accent.

"Several times Chris said 'something is killing me living in this house' so we packed up and abandoned the house in 2004 after trying to sell it for years," Steve Mobaldi testified.

The couple now lives in Grand Junction.

Wallace-Babb said she became a prisoner inside her own home outside Battlement Mesa after repeated exposures to chemicals near gas wells, including a cloud from condensate tanks that caused her to nearly pass out. She took to wearing a respirator whenever she went outside her home to do chores.

She since has moved to Texas.

She told the committee she used to believe governmental agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency protected citizens.

"I now know the EPA has been stripped of its power to do its defined job. All activities related to exploration for and recovery of oil and gas are exempt from the laws made to protect our environment and citizens. The oil and gas industry in Colorado is regulated by those who benefit from non-regulation and irresponsible actions where oil and gas are concerned. In a situation where the fox guards the hen house, it's deadly being a hen," she told the House committee.

Amy Mall, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said decades of deal-making between Congress, regulatory agencies and the oil and gas industry have resulted in it being exempted from water and air protection laws, and those requiring public reporting of toxic chemical use. She said those loopholes need to be closed.

Carbondale resident Ken Neubecker, speaking on behalf of Trout Unlimited, called for the reversal of a 2005 energy bill provision that exempts the industry's construction activities from storm water runoff regulations. He said such activities threaten everything from fisheries to public drinking water supplies.

But Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water for the EPA, noted that the exemption doesn't preclude states from imposing their own regulations. That's something Colorado has chosen to do.

"EPA ... recognizes that environmental protection strategies must evolve as the characteristics of U.S. industries and their operations change over time and that one-size-fits-all regulatory approaches do not always achieve superior environmental performance," he told the committee.

David Bolin, deputy director of Alabama's State Oil and Gas Board and a representative of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), said states and the industry examined the storm water management issue and found it wasn't feasible to develop a single standard to fit diverse requirements around the country.

"The bottom line with respect to the storm water issue is that there is no issue. Based on the conclusions of the IOGCC study, the states were already adequately regulating this activity," he said.

Bolin also responded to concerns that hydraulic fracturing used to stimulate gas well production could cause fracturing fluids consisting of undisclosed substances to contaminate groundwater.

"Approximately 35,000 wells are hydraulically fractured annually in this country with close to one million wells having been hydraulically fractured in the United States since the technique's inception with no documented harm to groundwater. Hydraulic fracturing has been regulated by the states since its inception," he said.

Bolin said creating new federal storm water and fracturing regulations wouldn't make oil and gas production any safer, but would increase its costs, thus reducing domestic supply.

House Passes Mining Reform, White House Threatens Veto

By Brodie Farquhar, 11-01-07 (From NewWest.net) The House voted 244-166 to reform a 135-year-old mining law Thursday afternoon, and force the hardrock mining industry to pay royalties on minerals extracted from public lands – just like the coal, oil and gas industries.

The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act (HR 2262) requires miners on federal lands to pay royalties of 8 percent of gross income on new mining operations, four percent on existing operations.

Republicans like Rep. Bill Sali of Idaho, predicted that the bill will destroy the American mining industry, exporting jobs and the industry to overseas countries that have little or no environmental regulations and have child labor in the mines.

The White House has threatened a veto, saying that placement of royalties on existing mining operations invites lawsuits. The House vote is not big enough to override the threatened veto.

“The bill approved today by the House falls far short of the reforms we have worked hard to achieve to provide a fair return to the taxpayer for the use of federal lands and greater regulatory certainty,” said National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Kraig R. Naasz. “The enormous costs that would be imposed on the hardrock mining industry by the bill and the failure to provide mining companies with greater security when operating on federal lands will only increase the nation’s growing reliance on imported minerals vital to our economy and our national defense.”

In contrast, conservationists were ecstatic over the win.

“Today the U.S. Congress takes an important step towards updating one of the last remaining laws that gives away our public lands and minerals,“ said Stephen D’Esposito, president of EARTHWORKS, which has long advocated reform of the 1872 mining law. “Although the law was passed before women could vote and long before the advent of national environmental laws, it still governs mining for precious minerals – such as gold, copper and uranium – on public lands.”

Before the final vote Thursday afternoon, the House voted on a number of procedural bills and motions, including seven amendments – five from Republican members. From the first Thursday vote to the last, the Democratic majority lost only one vote, but attracted the support of 24 Republicans – most from the East or MidWest.

Out in New West country, the voting was strictly by party line, although Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, didn’t vote all week, due to the ill health of her husband.

Of the Democratic congressmen who spoke in favor of the bill, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colorado, expressed a few reservations, but overall endorsed the idea of reform. His district includes Golden, home of the Colorado School of Mines and several hardrock mining companies.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the powerful House Natural Resources Committee, has been trying to reform the 1872 mining law for the past 20 years. With half a million abandoned mines scattered across the country and an estimated $30-70 billion price tag on environmental remediation, Rahall compared the old mining law to grand scale bank robbery. Indeed, Rahall said, the greatest bank robberies of history are “chump change” compared to the rip-off that the U.S. taxpayer has experienced over the past 135 years.

During floor debate, Rahall noted that David H. Bieter, the mayor of Boise, Idaho had written Rahall a letter, complaining that the city was “powerless” to protect the city’s source of drinking water from a Canadian mining company’s heap-leach cyanide operation.

“Over the years, the Mining Law of 1872 has helped develop the West and allowed needed minerals to be extracted from the Earth - but we have long passed the time when this 19th century law can be depended upon to serve the country’s 21st century mineral needs,” Rahall said. “At stake here are the health, welfare, and environmental integrity of our people and our precious federal lands, the public interest of all Americans, and the future of the hardrock mining industry in this country.”

Current law permits multi-national conglomerates to stake mining claims on federal lands in the 11 western states and Alaska and to produce valuable hardrock minerals such as gold, silver, and copper without paying any royalty to the public. Further, the law contains no mining and reclamation standards, and provides for claimed lands to be sold for between $2.50 and $5.00 an acre.

Laren Pagel, a lobbyist for EARTHWORKS, said even the mining industry admits what some degree of reform is warranted, and there is bipartisan support for reform in the Senate.

“We just don’t know what that would look like,” she said.

What is clear is that Senate action on reforming the nation’s basic mining law will start in the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. Chaired by Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and with Sen. Pete Dominici as the ranking member, the committee is heavily stocked with Western senators – eight Democratic and four Republican members, from the Western states of New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, South and North Dakota, Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho.

“It’ll probably be next year before we see any action in the Senate,” said Pagel.

Final mining reform bill voting in the House Montana * Dennis Rehberg-R: No Idaho * Bill Sali–R: No * Mike Simpson – R: No Wyoming * Barbara Cubin – R: Absent Colorado * Diana DeGrette – D: Yes * Mark Udall – D: Yes * John Salazar – D: Yes * Marilyn Musgrave – R: No * Doug Lamborn – R: No * Tom Tancredo – R: No * Ed Perlmutter – D: Yes Oregon * David Wu – D: Yes * Greg Walden – R: No * Earl Blumenau – D: Yes * Peter DeFazio – D: Yes * Darlene Hooley – D: No Utah * Rob Bishop – R: No * Jim Matheson – D: Yes * Chris Cannon – R: No New Mexico * Heather Wilson – R: No * Stevan Pearce – R: No * Tom Udall – D: Yes Nevada * Shelli Berkley – D: Yes * Dean Heller – R: No * Jon Porter – R: No

Grand County drill leases halted

BLM notes the furor over 31,000 acres with little energy imprint.

By Steve Lipsher The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/31/2007 01:22:34 AM MDT

 The federal government on Tuesday removed 23 oil-and-gas-exploration leases in Grand County from its upcoming sale after residents protested what they considered an unwarranted intrusion into unmarred country.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials announced that they would defer the Nov. 8 sale of 12,802 acres of BLM land and 18,276 acres of "split-estate" property - in which the landowner does not control the mineral rights beneath the ground - including scenic parcels just outside the county seat of Hot Sulphur Springs.

"We acknowledge that, with little federal oil-and-gas leasing in Grand County in recent years, all parties involved will benefit from additional discussions and outreach on the federal oil-and-gas leasing process," said BLM deputy state director Lynn Rust.

Granby Mayor Ted Wang expressed relief, saying that he recognized a groundswell of opposition to energy exploration in the fast-growing ranching and tourism region.

Wang and officials in four other Grand County towns indicated they had not been aware of the extent of the exploration that could occur and expressed concerns over the impacts to roads, housing, social services and the local economy.

The Colorado Division of Wildlife and environmental groups including Trout Unlimited also protested the leases.

Wildlife officials still harbor concerns about the leases proposed for parcels in Jackson, Routt and Moffat counties that could intrude into big-game habitat and undermine efforts to protect endangered fish.

The BLM plans to continue with sales of 135 parcels covering 129,726 acres across Colorado despite receiving protests on all of them, although no exploration will be allowed until those concerns are considered.

Grand County is not believed to harbor a significant profitable quantity of natural gas, a big reason that records say just one drilling permit has been issued there since 1988.

Wildlife defenders take a stand

By Charlie MeyersThe Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/30/2007 11:14:58 PM MDT

Amid the continuing bad news from the Roan Plateau and other energy development hotspots, one light continues to shine brightly. Even in the face of political sellouts and unbending bureaucrats, defenders of wildlife values keep slugging away with an organized determination that should serve their cause well, now and in future battles.

Following the dictates of their Washington, D.C., masters, regional operatives of the Bureau of Land Management have announced plans to expand leasing beyond these earlier centers to include key parcels that will impact high-country wildlife habitat.

A planned Nov. 8 auction of 189,000 acres in 170 scattered parcels includes public land in Jackson, Grand, Moffat and Dolores counties. These contain big-game wintering range, important sage grouse habitat, and streams that contain wild and native trout populations.

Wildlife proponents, caught by surprise, have been quick to react.

"This lease sale is indicative of the BLM and its mad rush to drill new country, despite the existing values these places harbor," said Scott Linn of Granby, president of the Colorado Rivers Headwaters Chapter of Trout Unlimited. "For sportsmen, this sale could be a real mess and the fact that we're just hearing about it is troubling."

Even as wildlife advocates fight this new fire, the battle continues on the Roan Plateau, where state officials join conservation groups in trying to limit damage that seems to spread daily. From road kills to outright poaching by energy workers to general environmental degradation, the Roan has become a symbol for all that's wrong with this push by the Bush administration to give developers everything they want.

As a case in point, the BLM determination to drop the drilling boundaries along three streams - Trapper, Northwater and the East Fork of Parachute Creek - holding remnant populations of threatened Colorado River cutthroat trout down the slopes above the streams.

"We wanted to keep the drilling along the tops of the ridges to reduce sediment going into the streams," said JT Romatzke, district wildlife manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "If the leases go through, the wells will be all over it."

At the same time, the Colorado Mule Deer Association has filed a protest over another BLM ploy to intensify drilling along South Parachute Gap. In conjunction with the Colorado and National Wildlife Foundations, CMDA has appealed to BLM's state director as part of an action it plans to force all the way to the Internal Board of Land Appeals.

"We hope to force BLM to start managing the land as they're supposed to do, to get the oil companies to tell us what they propose to do," said Bob Elderkin of Silt, a member of CMDA's board of directors and retired BLM employee.

Considering that BLM seems determined to flaunt whatever blurred rules it uses to direct these operations, court action may be required to sort things out. Should proponents choose that alternative, one beneficial result could be a delay in development of certain sensitive areas until the administration changes early in 2009.

Meanwhile, wildlife advocates continue a fight that the wild places of Colorado can't afford to lose.

Colo. SC rules water district overdid growth estimates

From Legal Newsline.com by Rob Luke

DENVER -- The Colorado Supreme Court has denied water rights for a reservoir to serve a southwestern county by ruling the local water authority over-estimated the area's future growth.

In Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District et. al. v. Trout Unlimited (docket# 06SA338) the Supreme Court overturned a 2004 water court ruling allowing the Pagosa Water District conditional water rights from the San Juan River. It would have allowed total annual storage of 64,000 acre-feet of water through 2100.

Opponents Trout Unlimited, a fishing advocacy group, argued that the rights were based on unrealistic population-growth estimates for Archuleta County. The Pagosa Water District served 9,500 people with 2,000 acre-feet in 2005; based on 2005 use, capacity of 64,000 acre-feet would serve over 300,000 residents.

The Supreme Court agreed, arguing that water rights cannot be claimed speculatively in Colorado. "The water court must...make factual findings concerning whether the districts can and will place the claimed amount of unappropriated water to beneficial use within a reasonable time," wrote Justice Gregory J. Hobbs.

The San Juan Water Conservancy District, which fought the suit with the Pagosa Water District, still holds conditional rights to 6,300 acre-feet of water for the Dry Gulch reservoir.

Conserve, recycle

EDITORIALTHE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

TROUT UNLIMITED recently won a major Colorado Supreme Court case that recognizes there are limits to the water municipal suppliers may claim for future population growth.

In 2004, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District and San Juan Water Conservancy District received a Durango water court decree for enough reservoir water for more than 300,000 people - projected out nearly a century to the year 2100.

Yet, in 2005 the Pagosa district served only 9,500 people with a modest 2,000 acre-feet of water (325,851 gallons per acre).

On appeal, Trout Unlimited convinced the Supreme Court that the amount of water claimed, predicted population growth and 100-year time frame were unrealistic. Colorado's anti-speculation doctrine prohibits hoarding water without a reasonable plan for putting it to beneficial use.

Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs wrote the unanimous decision overturning the lower court.

Justice Hobbs found that municipal suppliers must take into account, among other factors, how water conservation measures and reuse can reduce future municipal water demand.

Closer to home, Colorado Springs Utilities should take notice and seriously undertake conservation and reuse of its existing water supplies to mitigate that city’s Southern Delivery System plan of taking yet more water out of Lake Pueblo to the detriment of Pueblo and the Lower Arkansas Valley.

We congratulate Trout Unlimited for fighting to protect the San Juan River trout fishery and Justice Hobbs for giving judicial weight to the role of conservation and reuse in water law.