Interior Department Opening More Than 11,000 Acres of North Park to Drilling
By Bruce Finley/Denver Post
Over the protests of conservation groups, federal land managers are moving to open 11,160 acres of North Park (Colorado) for gas and oil drilling. The valley between the Zirkel and Medicine Bow mountains sustains antelope, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, raptors, trout and sage grouse. But the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management — despite recent vows to emphasize conservation — decided the nation’s need for domestic oil justified the decision to allow drilling in the North Park area.
“Certainly, if we want to supply some of our domestic energy needs, drilling is going to occur in places like this,” BLM spokesman Steven Hall said.
This week, BLM managers plan to take bids at a drilling-rights auction for the parcels covering the acres in North Park — plus another 6,600 acres statewide. They’ve tweaked their North Park proposal to protect some sage grouse breeding grounds and could put limits on drilling companies.
The prospect of a valley fragmented by islands of drilling is politically difficult because BLM leaders are simultaneously trying to project a new image as conservation-oriented caretakers of the 253 million acres of public land the agency controls. Most of it is located in 12 Western states.
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Filed Under: ARCHIVES • Feature Articles • Policy
Tags: Bureau of Land Management • colorado oil and gas industry • U.S.Department of Interior
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Comment by cogeo on 10 May 2010:
While it sounds like BLM is bowing to energy interests, the outcome will be far less appealing to anyone desiring access to our federal minerals. Salazar never gives anything to extractive industries without removing twice that amount. Perhaps overly restricted access windows or ridiculous ingress/egress rules. The other shoe won’t take long to fall, so we shouldn’t be held in suspense much longer.
Comment by C. Hassler on 14 May 2010:
Our five acre plot near Hartzel, CO was just leased today for gas and oil exploration. I’m not a Colorado state resident but my family has owned the surface land for some time. I’m in Florida waiting for possibly the biggest oil spill in history to start spreading towards the Florida Coast killing all marine life in its path. We will probably want to sell the land now but with an oil lease won’t be able to. So sorry about the destruction they have cause to a truly beautiful Colorado.
Comment by Video Planet on 20 May 2010:
Our five acre plot near Hartzel, CO was just leased today for gas and oil exploration. I’m not a Colorado state resident but my family has owned the surface land for some time. I’m in Florida waiting for possibly the biggest oil spill in history to start spreading towards the Florida Coast killing all marine life in its path. We will probably want to sell the land now but with an oil lease won’t be able to. So sorry about the destruction they have cause to a truly beautiful Colorado.
+1