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Oil and gas producers don't appreciate Colorado's outdoors

This Web only Speakout has not been edited.

Bill Dvorak

Published May 1, 2008 at noon

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I wonder if Meg Collins, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, has had the pleasure of enjoying Colorado’s most important natural resource, our iconic landscapes and pristine fish and wildlife habitat. It doesn’t seem so, judging from her response to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s draft environmental rules regulating the oil and gas industry.

Ms. Collins believes that these important new rules will “negatively impact Colorado’s number one economic contributor.” Hunting and fishing is a renewable resource. Last I checked, oil and gas are not.

Hunting and fishing generate over 1.5 billion dollars and combined with other recreational activities, the things that attract most of us and visitors to our state, 2.5 billion in economic contribution. For years this has been the number one or two economic contributors in Colorado. Oil and gas can be here today and gone tomorrow. We all remember May 2, 1982,” BLACK SUNDAY” when Exxon pulled out and over 2,200 jobs disappeared overnight. It took over 10 years for the west slope to recover economically. It recovered by concentrating on the pristine aspects of Colorado’s scenery and wildlife habitat.

Sportsmen know that we need energy resources to survive. However, the current pace of energy development fails to consider the needs of fish and wildlife and water resources. The draft COGCC Rules are a means to change the current statuesque and help protect wildlife and fisheries.

With 27 million acres of big-game habitat already leased to oil and gas companies in the Rockies and 126,000 new wells being planned, sportsmen believe that common-sense reforms to oil and gas policy are needed to conserve hunting and fishing opportunities on public lands. Pursued responsibly, energy development can proceed with minimal impacts to fish and wildlife and their habitats.

If effective energy policy was in place, the BLM would not be rushing to lease all of our public lands. Sportsmen must work with organizations, state agencies and members of Congress to balance this development with responsible management of other public resources. If sportsmen don’t act now, hunting and fishing will not remain a renewable source of income - both in Colorado and across the West. We need to support these COGCC Rules.

Bill Dvorak writes from Nathrop.

Comments

  • May 1, 2008

    2:18 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    bobbyb writes:

    "Hunting and fishing generate over 1.5 billion dollars..."

    WOW! Natural gas development in Colorado generates over $23 billion.

    How about including some evidence that natural gas development is harming hunting and fishing? According to the DOW, harvest numbers are up and have been for the past decade.

    Quit drinking the environmentalists' kool-aid and do some research!

  • May 2, 2008

    6:36 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    "fails to consider the needs of fish and wildlife and water resources"? Bill Dvorak of Nathrop didn't cite examples. All he did was an environmentalist rant with populist pleadings. It's rants like these that got off-shore drilling banned and arctic drilling banned. And for what? Bill, do you bicycle to work year round? If not, you use the very fuel you want banned. Go hug a cactus.

  • May 2, 2008

    7:54 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    greenleaf writes:

    SQUATCH,

    Boy you must run into a lot of these "enviro-phobic" people. It must be terrible to be afraid of the environment! I mean, after all its all around us!