Groups urge BLM to reduce gas leases in new plan for public lands ...

Carbondale?s Wilderness Workshop and 10 other conservation groups have called for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to limit gas leasing and expand environmental protection in a new plan for local public lands, as the agency concluded its public comment period on it Wednesday.

The ?resource management plan? covers more than a half-million acres of BLM land across six counties in western Colorado. It includes 27,490 acres in Pitkin County and such popular Roaring Fork Valley recreation areas as the Crown, Light Hill and Arbaney-Kittle.

The plan, which governs use, development and protection of BLM property, was last updated in 1984.

The conservation groups? extensive comments were among roughly 30,000 submitted to the BLM since September, according to BLM spokesman David Boyd.

In a 160-page document, the conservation groups detailed concerns about gas development, wildlife protection and controlling recreation on BLM land.

Along with Wilderness Workshop, the coalition included state advocacy groups like Rocky Mountain Recreation Initiative and the national Sierra Club.

?Topmost among the groups? concerns is oil and gas development,? reads a statement included in their official comments.

The BLM offered four planning options, with varying levels of conservation and development. Boyd said the final plan is likely to be a hybrid of all four options, based largely on the sentiment in public comments.

But the option the BLM has identified as its ?preferred alternative? would make 92 percent of the agency?s underground mineral holdings open to oil and gas leasing, which drew strong opposition from the conservation groups.

?As the plan is currently drafted, the groups view it as putting some of Colorado?s most pristine and sensitive lands at risk and jeopardizing the health of local citizens and communities,? reads the groups? submission to the BLM.

They argued that many of the areas are unfit for gas development because of their wilderness characteristics and importance to wildlife. The groups also detailed concerns with the existing BLM environmental analysis for gas drilling, which was conducted in 1999, and its low projections of how much gas development might take place in Western Colorado.

?This means that the BLM, and local communities, will be woefully unprepared to the actual extent of natural gas development to come,? the conservationists stated. ?The agency must revise its [projections] to more accurately reflect reality so that the true impacts on human health for the quarter-million people living within the planning area are disclosed.?

Some of the areas at issue are included in proposals for federal wilderness designation from Rep. Jared Polis and Sen. Mark Udall, including about 7,000 acres of the Thompson Creek area near Carbondale.

The BLM?s preferred alternative left that area open to oil and gas leasing. The conservation groups and local officials, including the Pitkin County commissioners, called for banning gas development there.

Regarding recreation, the Pitkin County commissioners and Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife called, in their separate comments, for partial winter closures of some trails in and around the Roaring Fork Valley. They argued closures were necessary to protect local deer and elk herds.

The conservation groups Wednesday called on the BLM to control the impacts of recreation, like mountain biking on its land.

?Recreation management in areas like The Crown, Thompson Creek, and BLM lands south of Wolcott has been ineffective to constrain a growing web of user-created trails and increasing recreational conflicts,? they wrote. ?The result has been economic losses to grazing permittees, the loss of important wildlife habitat, and degradation of other public land values.?

The BLM will now sift through the thousands of comments it has collected. Federal officials will use them to develop a final plan, known in agency speak as a ?proposed alternative.?

?It?s not uncommon for it to take up to a year for a proposed alternative,? Boyd said Wednesday.

After that plan comes out, it will be open to specific protests from people who had made prior comments on it. Based on the outcome of those protests, the BLM will then adopt a final plan and begin implementing it.

Boyd said most of the comments have focused on recreation concerns and, like the conservation groups, on oil and gas leasing.

?There was a lot of interest in diverse issues,? he added. ?It wasn?t a single issue that had people?s attention.?

He characterized the volume of public input as above average. The 30,000 comments totaled far more than the 2,000 submitted for a plan for the BLM?s Kremmling field office, in a public comment period that concluded last month. But it?s far less than the 75,000 comments on a plan for the gas-rich Roan Plateau, which was finalized in 2008.

Responses to public comments will be included in the agency?s proposed alternative ? it will not send responses directly to people who made them.

andrew@aspendailynews.com

Source: http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/152076

raiders news raiders news ice cream sandwich android ice cream sandwich android harry belafonte harry belafonte batman arkham city