Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Bill Barrett Corp. has already begun drilling operations at most of the 25 sites, which were approved in batches during April, May and June of this year. The 25 wells are part of the company's controversial plan to drill more than 800 wells in the West Tavaputs Plateau, on the edge of the highly productive Uinta Basin (Land Letter, Feb. 21).

"The Bill Barrett Corporation ... has many other noncontroversial areas that it could target for drilling, but it has chosen to focus on an area that is truly one of the West's ancient treasures," said Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which filed the lawsuit in conjunction with the Wilderness Society and the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition. "BLM is also complicit because the agency has chosen to ignore environmental safeguards, which could result in irreversible damage to the cultural artifacts of the Nine Mile Canyon region."

According to BLM's Web site, "Nine Mile Canyon has the greatest concentration of rock art sites in the U.S.A." The Web site also notes the fragility of the site with these instructions: "Leave Native American rock art, ruins, and artifacts untouched for the future. The oil from a single handprint can chemically affect rock art. Climbing on ruin walls can destroy, in a moment, a structure that has survived for a thousand years."

Yet BLM's approval of the gas wells in the canyon will result in harm to the petroglyphs, the plaintiffs argue. Vehicle and truck traffic to and from the well sites will kick up dust and rocks that could damage the rock art, the groups contend.

But Brad Higdon, environmental coordinator for BLM's Price field office, defended his office's approval of the permits. "In addition to a number of best management practices, we've imposed a very high standard of dust control."

He explained that the plan calls for use of a dust suppressant. Though he said several products are in the testing and monitoring stage, the company has already started applying PennzSuppress, which is produced by American Refining Group Inc., to the routes being used. The company claims the product is an "environmentally safe, emulsified petroleum resin" that suppresses dust and stabilizes soil.

"We're encouraged so far with the response we've gotten from the operators already using the product," Hidgon said.

This hardly satisfies the conservationists.

Pam Miller, a trained archaeologist and chair of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, has said the area's artifacts "are being obliterated by dust and destroyed by dust-suppressant chemicals (magnesium chloride) being sprayed on roads, and jeopardized by the vibrations of huge trucks, drill rigs, bulldozers and industrial traffic."

The groups also claim that BLM failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act by not providing analysis of the full range of environmental impacts caused by the 25 wells. By approving these activities under loopholes known as "statutory categorical exclusions," BLM is not considering these potentially significant impacts, the groups said.

"Over the past seven years, as the administration has relentlessly pushed oil and gas projects into iconic Western landscapes, BLM has repeatedly and embarrassingly been forced to rescind ill-considered leasing decisions," said Suzanne Jones, regional director of the Wilderness Society's Central Rockies Office. "When it comes to BLM's illegal practice of acting before thinking, the West Tavaputs project is certainly one of the most egregious examples."

Higdon also defended his agency on this front. He said, "The language in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which provides for categorical exclusions is very explicit, and we've taken great measures to comply." Furthermore, he pointed out, BLM over the past five years has performed four separate environmental assessments to evaluate the effects of drilling in the area.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment