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A poor Roan decision

By David A. Lien,

Published December 26, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.

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I had the privilege of attending Gov. Bill Ritter's evening with sportsmen and conservationists in Denver on Dec. 19, and was impressed by his seeming innate ability to seek out achievable goals and focus on the needed processes to get there.

When asked about his position regarding drilling on the Roan Plateau in Western Colorado, he mentioned conservation and climate change and energy security, but also indicated, without stating a definite position, that he might not be willing to oppose drilling on top of the plateau. In his news conference the following afternoon, he stated as much.

This is disappointing, because in a remarkable moment during the 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush caught the attention of the nation and the world with five words: "America is addicted to oil." And natural gas. Our president finally acknowledged that America needs to begin the process of using less, not more, oil and gas and that we must become less, not more, dependent on fossil fuels.

Ritter's Roan position only serves to make us more dependent on fossil fuels and - considering that 86 percent of the gas that is likely to be produced from the Roan Plateau Planning Area over the next 20 years can be extracted without drilling any wells on top of the Plateau - is surprisingly shortsighted.

Moreover, according to a 2006 government study, 90 percent of the public, Bureau of Land Management-managed natural gas in the Uinta/Piceance Basins area is already available for leasing.

The public lands on the Roan Plateau are less than 67,000 acres - about 1.5 percent of Piceance Basin, and almost half of the Roan Plateau is already owned or leased by the natural gas industry. The small point of BLM land now awaiting government approval for surface leasing amounts to about 35,000 acres. "This is not about saving the Roan Plateau. It's about saving what's left," said Corey Fisher, energy field coordinator for Trout Unlimited.

If the Piceance is sacrificed for energy development, we risk losing a wildlife heritage that is the envy of much of the nation and world.

Habitat for mule deer, sage grouse, native trout and elk is in even shorter supply than oil and gas. And while there is a growing array of clean, practical and wildlife-friendly renewable energy sources available, critical winter range is irreplaceable.

Destroying habitat on the Roan is not only a waste, it's a needless waste.

Drilling on the Roan is no longer about compromise, or balance, or energy security, it's about energy industry greed and gluttony, about decimating what little is left of Colorado's and the country's wildlands and wildlife for nationally insignificant amounts of natural gas that will only serve to prolong our fossil fuels addiction and result in an even nastier "hangover" than we're already in for.

And when this energy play winds down in the West, as it inevitably will, what's going to be left for Westerners and all Americans who cherish our public lands and wildlife? The energy firms will move on to the next hot play, as will their dollars and their employees. Even a spokeswoman for the Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams - a company that can drill more than 20 wells from a single site, dramatically reducing exploration's surface footprint - concedes that the site under development atop the Roan Plateau "is never going to look the same," even after genuine efforts to restore it.

When you're addicted to something, you don't go looking for a pusher, you look for therapy, and the Roan has become a symbol for all that's wrong with this push by federal officials to give the energy industry everything it wants. Given half a chance, energy companies would likely drill under Arlington National Cemetery if there was oil or natural gas to be found there. Nothing is sacred to them, nothing is safe, if there's a buck to be made.

The governor, although surely well-meaning in his Roan position, apparently fails to comprehend that the cost of oil and gas, the real cost, is not just what we're paying at the pump. It's what we're paying in Iraq.

David A. Lien is the co-chair of Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (www.coloradobackcountryhunters.org). He is a resident of Colorado Springs.

Comments

  • December 27, 2007

    12:22 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Brain writes:

    David makes some good points on why we should extract the natural gas out of the area; we don't need to even drill directly on top of the land.

    "considering that 86 percent of the gas that is likely to be produced from the Roan Plateau Planning Area over the next 20 years can be extracted without drilling any wells on top of the Plateau"

    I am not that well informed of this situation; is it about drilling on top of the plateau or extracting the natural gas at all? I do know that there is modern ways of extracting the gas without "destroying" the land especially in regards to hunting or fishing.