Proposed oil, gas leases in southern Colorado net protests

Proposed oil and gas leases on more than 140,000 acres in a national forest in southern Colorado, including roadless areas, generated several protests.

DENVER - Proposed oil and gas leases on more than 140,000 acres in a national forest in southern Colorado, including roadless areas, generated several protests Wednesday.

About 19,000 acres of the total 175,430 acres set for auction May 8 are on land classified as roadless under a 2001 ban on road-building in parts of national forests. Opposition to opening those lands to development and fears of harm to air and water quality and wildlife were cited in several of the challenges.

Conservation groups note that the Rio Grande National Forest is the headwaters of the Rio Grande and fear that one accidental spill could affect an entire watershed.

"My biggest concern is that I lived through the Summitville fiasco," said David Colville, whose family has ranched for four generations near Del Norte. "I want some really strict environmental controls if they do come in."

The defunct Summitville gold mine, abandoned after its operators declared bankruptcy, was made a federal Superfund site in 1994. Toxic metals from the site killed all life in 17 miles of the Alamosa River system.

Colville and his wife are protesting some of the parcels. So are Saguache County officials, who want to build on renewable energy businesses planned for the San Luis Valley, which is ringed by the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountains. A solar-power plant was built there last year.

"We don't really feel that oil and gas development is a compatible industry in the valley," Saguache County Commissioner Linda Joseph said.

Saguache County is among more than 10 agencies, conservation groups and local governments protesting the leases, which would chiefly be for natural gas.

The Rio Grande National Forest has experienced little of the gas drilling that's been expanding in other parts of Colorado. Forest spokesman Mike Blakeman said a large of amount of land in the area was previously leased, but many of those leases expired.

Rio Grande County has asked the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees mineral development on federal land, to postpone sale of some of the leases so it can review and update its oil and gas regulations.

Others want parcels yanked from consideration, at least temporarily, to assess the potential impacts on area water supplies and air quality. Colorado BLM officials have withdrawn parcels from past auctions after leases were challenged.

BLM spokesman Jim Sample said the agency had received several protests by Wednesday afternoon, but didn't have a definite number.

Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council and the Western Environmental Law Center protested some of the leases because of the development's potential greenhouse gas emissions.

"These oil and gas lease parcels are between 8,000 and 11,000 feet. They're going into the high country now," said Christine Canaly, director of the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council.

Some parcels also straddle two tributaries of the Rio Grande, Canaly added.

Conservation groups point out that the area is also home to big-game herds and endangered and threatened plants and animals, including lynx.

Another concern is that 19,000 acres up for auction are classified as roadless under a Clinton-era ban on new roads in some of the national forests. Mineral leases can be offered, but roads can't be built. The oil or gas would have to be extracted offsite by drilling a well from another area and angling the hole.

Blakeman of the Rio Grande National Forest said 70,000 acres of the forest land up for lease have conditions attached saying the surface can't be disturbed. Roadless areas would be protected by the 2001 road-building ban, Blakeman said.

Leaseholders could ask that the road-building prohibition be waived, but it's unlikely it would be granted, Blakeman said.

State officials have written to the Forest Service and BLM reiterating Colorado's wish to leave the roadless areas undeveloped, said Mike King, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs Forest Service policy, has said that 4.1 million acres of roadless national forests in Colorado will be protected while state and federal officials develop rules to manage the areas.

The fate of the land has been a point of contention since Colorado decided to write its own management plan for the roadless sites even though the 2001 road-building ban was thrown out then reinstated by the courts. State officials have called a Colorado-specific plan an insurance policy because of new lawsuits over the federal rule.