Welcome to Western Resource Advocates' Lands Program! Here, you'll find updates and information about our recent work and achievements. You can use the buttons to the right for more information about the Lands Program's top four project areas.

WRA: Lands

Western Resource Advocates Lands Program Update

Roan Plateau Protection

Western Resource Advocates has long advocated for legislative protection of Colorado’s magnificent Roan Plateau. The Roan Plateau is a vital area of great beauty that supports diverse wildlife, including essential stream habitat for Colorado’s purest populations of cutthroat trout, and crucial winter range for big game herds estimated at 13,000 deer and 9,000 elk.

m_canyon (120K) However, with the rush to develop oil and gas resources, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing to drill 3,693 new wells above the rim of the Roan Plateau, and a total of 13,495 wells in the Roan Plateau Planning Area. If allowed to proceed, this would transform the Roan Plateau into an energy sacrifice zone with the highest density gas field in Colorado. While WRA recognizes that oil and gas development may be appropriate on some public lands, the top of the Roan Plateau should not be compromised. WRA represents a broad coalition of conservation and wildlife groups ready to defend the Roan Plateau from inappropriate development.

WRA’s advocacy has helped win support for long-term protection:

In June 2007, BLM responded to WRA’s protest of its management proposal by re-opening public comment on “areas of critical environmental concern.” WRA submitted comprehensive comments on the need for protections, including a report by John Woodling, a retired fisheries biologist.
Mr. Woodling’s recommendation is to fully protect the priceless native trout watersheds on the Upper Plateau from significant threats to water quality from spills, accidents, and sedimentation.
Although Colorado Governor Bill Ritter proposed a phased leasing program short of full protection, the State is advocating for increased protections consistent with the Division of Wildlife’s scientific recommendations for protecting trout and big game habitat.
WRA continues to advocate Congressional legislation to protect the Roan, modeled on recent acts that protected Otero Mesa in New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, as well as the pending Wyoming Range Legacy Act. Colorado’s magnificent public lands warrant an equal level of protection.
WRA is prepared to use every available policy and legal option available to ensure that the Roan’s wildlife and scenery are passed to future generations as an intact legacy.

Please check back regularly for updates. For more information, visit the “Save the Roan” website.

Photo courtesy of Colorado Environmental Coalition.

Working with the Navajo to Protect Cultural Sites in New Mexico

To the casual traveler, the stretch of Highway 550 that connects the Four Corners region to Albuquerque is a desolate landscape. To geologists and the hundreds of oil and gas companies operating in the San Juan Basin, the region contains one of the world’s most prolific natural gas and coalbed methane fields. To Native American residents, the landscape is distinguished by an abundance of historical, cultural, and scenic riches.

The Bureau of Land Management’s current plan for these lands fails to balance mineral development with other values, such as historic preservation and the health and vitality of Native American communities. WRA has filed federal court litigation challenging the Plan, on behalf of a diverse group of plaintiffs including three chapters of the Navajo Nation and the grassroots group Diné CARE.

Although several thousand Navajo reside in the region, individual tribal members and local tribal governments do not receive royalties from oil and gas drilling. Often, neither the energy companies nor BLM provide advance notice before entering tribal lands to drill wells, bulldoze roads or dig new pipelines. This endangers the integrity of values including sacred sites, historic properties, natural springs, and plants gathered for traditional uses such as medicine, handicrafts and dying wool.

During a summer field visit to these lands, hosted by President Samuel Sage of the Counselor Chapter of the Eastern Navajo Agency, WRA attorneys viewed firsthand the impacts of drilling on tribal lands. By visiting with local Navajo and hearing their stories, we gained a new appreciation for the need to comply with federal environmental and cultural protection laws.

Navajo people are entitled to safeguard the cultural and ecological integrity of their lands. To expect the Navajo to bear the brunt of development, without receiving any benefits, is fundamentally unfair. The National Historic Preservation Act requires the government to closely consult with tribes on oil and gas development that affects tribal interests.

WRA is working with the local communities in the Four Corners region and has petitioned the courts to require balanced management of federal lands. Navajo residents will continue to dwell in their ancestral homeland long after the last gas well has been plugged and abandoned by industry.

Recent Developments

Land Program Highlights
Recent Work to Protect Western Landscapes

COLORADO: BLM withdraws 17,500 acres from lease sale

WRA attorneys advised citizens' groups and landowners in Western Colorado on federal oil and gas law and formulating strategies to give local people and their elected representatives a voice on leasing decisions of "split estate" lands. Our joint efforts resulted in BLM's decision to withdraw 17,500 acres from the May, 2005 Colorado lease sale. It is only fair for private landowners to have a chance to review and comment on leasing decisions for the mineral estate. Once leased, the landowner has little say over future decisons that could result in wells being drilled adjacent to their residences and within their farm or ranch.

NEW MEXICO: Farmington

WRA is representing a unique coalition of individual ranchers, Eastern Navajo Chapters, Native American interests, and conservation groups united by their determination to ensure that future oil and gas development in northwestern New Mexico proceeds in accordance with federal law. In their federal court challenge, plaintiffs challenge the Bureau of Land Management’s Revised Resource Management Plan for the Farmington Field Office, which proposes to authorize nearly 10,000 new oil and gas wells in an area that already hosts over 20,000 active wells as a result of significant oil and gas development over the last 50 years.

The Bureau of Land Management’s new plan to allow 50% more drilling in this area would effectively eliminate any wildlife habitat values in the region and increase air pollution in an area already suffering serious health impacts from ozone emissions. Our case challenges the Bureau of Land Management’s failure to comply with its responsibilities to require rational, phased development of its lands by balancing uses and complying with governing law for the protection of the environment and human health. WRA has asked the court to require the Bureau of Land Management to take a hard look at the impacts to all resources by analyzing a reasonable range of alternatives and cumulative impacts, to consult with concerned Navajo Chapters about affording real protection for Tribal cultural sites in the area, and to prevent widespread degradation of resources. Briefing of this federal case is now complete.

In 2005, WRA began working with Forest Guardians and others to file challenges to individual drilling proposals in “Areas of Critical Environmental Concern,” for which Congress has directed the Bureau of Land Management that special management attention is required to protect and prevent irreparable damage to important historic, cultural, and other values. WRA is requesting that new development should be proposed pursuant to a comprehensive plan that takes account of baseline conditions, ensures careful monitoring, and protects the special resources behind the ACEC designation. However, BLM continues to rubber stamp new projects, refuses to survey the location and impacts from past drilling, or declines to require drillers to submit a comprehensive plan of future development.

Wildlife is showing stress from unmanaged drilling. According to counts conducted by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, from 1999 to 2004, elk numbers crashed from 987 to 119 and mule deer from 1519 to 691. In November 2005, the Bureau of Land Management authorized winter drilling in a Bald Eagle protection area – although Forest Guardians observed three eagles during a site visit.

COLORADO: Leasing in Citizens-Proposed Wilderness

The Bureau of Land Management is leasing Colorado’s natural treasures with breakneck speed, notwithstanding citizen efforts to identify and protect landscapes with outstanding wilderness and recreational values. These lands were included in the Colorado Wilderness Act of 2003, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette, which would permanently protect them from uses that would compromise wilderness character -- such as oil and gas leasing, exploration, and development. When the Bureau of Land Management leases these parcels, the lands become burdened with new mineral development rights and will lose their wilderness character as development occurs. The Bureau of Land Management consistently offers for lease nearly every parcel nominated by industry. In doing so, the Bureau of Land Management refuses to conduct further environmental review and fails to consider alternatives that could protect surface resources, such as prohibiting surface-disturbing activities or requiring the use of directional drilling. WRA has appealed several of these leasing decisions on behalf of local and national conservation groups, in the hopes that Colorado’s wild landscapes might remain intact. If the Bureau of Land Management proceeds with its aggressive leasing program, Colorado’s mid and lower-elevation wilderness lands will be seriously diminished before Congress can properly consider permanent protection.

COLORADO: Responsible Motorized Recreation

WRA recently argued before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Forest Service’s Molas Pass closures. In 2001, the Forest Service closed a 200 acre area in Andrews Lake and the Bear Creek drainage to snowmobile use. The area, located in the San Juan National Forest, was closed to prevent conflicts between snowmobilers and back-country skiers and to protect prime habitat for the threatened Canada lynx. Several motorized vehicle clubs then sued the Forest Service demanding that the area be re-opened. WRA intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of client conservation groups to support the Forest Service. Judge Blackburn issued an order rejecting the motorized vehicle clubs’ arguments, but motorized groups appealed the decision as part of their plan to litigate every closure decision, regardless of size, proof of user conflicts or the quality of the agency decision-making process.

UTAH: Responsible Motorized Recreation

To protect pristine forest habitat from the tide of ORV (Off-Road Vehicle) abuse, we are using the: 1) the travel planning process, which is currently underway in the Ogden Ranger District of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest and the Fishlake National Forest, and 2) the petition process, which allows citizen groups to seek the closure of environmentally-damaging routes and trails.

Most recently, we filed an administrative appeal on behalf of the Ogden Chapter of the Sierra Club. As a result, the Forest Service withdrew its Travel Plan opening new ORV routes and designating a 500 mile trail network across the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The Forest Service cited the District Ranger’s failure to analyze adequately cumulative environmental impacts as the basis for the remand for further environmental review. At issue are roadless areas, wildlife habitat, water quality and opportunities for quiet recreation.

UTAH: R.S. 2477

WRA wants to ensure that R.S. 2477 does not become the knife that cuts through Utah’s forest habitats. We contribute to a regional effort to prevent use of the repealed statute to open up new routes in sensitive areas. First, we use Utah’s open records law to gain access to documents and other records. Second, we take work to prevent bogus R.S. 2477 rights-of-way claims on Utah’s National Forests.

Already, we have used Utah’s open records law to get an order requiring the Utah Attorney General’s Office to release records related to 20 routes claimed as “highways” under R.S. 2477 by Utah and its counties. Continuing our efforts to protect Utah’s wild places from willy-nilly and unsubstantiated R.S. 2477 claims, we are before the Utah Court of Appeals arguing that records maintained about R.S. 2477 rights-of-way pursuant to state statute should be available to the public.

UTAH: BLM Oil and Gas Leasing

WRA's objective is to protect sensitive National Forest lands in Utah from oil and gas drilling, and to strictly condition drilling in those areas where it occurs. Our efforts to date have saved almost 50,000 acres of the Manti-La Sal National Forest from oil and gas leasing, but leases for approximately 105,000 acres in other Utah National Forests have been approved and leases for 60,000 acres more are pending. Many of these threatened areas are roadless.

Recently, however, a federal district court in California rejected the Bush Administration’s “State Petition” rule and reinstated the Clinton-era Roadless Rule. This means that over four million acres of Utah’s most intact forest ecosystems may be spared from oil and gas development. WRA will continue to our work to ensure that the Roadless Rule is enforced in Utah and that the Forest Service properly considers environmental impacts before it leases our most pristine Forest lands for oil and gas development.

WYOMING: Greater Red Desert

The Bureau of Land Management has its own name for the Red Desert of southern Wyoming. They call it “Desolation Flats” in their drilling proposal -- although the area is neither desolate nor flat. On the contrary, the Red Desert is a land of beautiful natural contrasts that contains blossoms and badlands, canyons and buttresses. The diverse and vibrant area also includes important wildlife habitat and linkages. Nonetheless, the Bureau of Land Management has adopted a plan that would allow up to 385 new natural gas wells, 542 miles of road, and 360 miles of new pipeline in a quarter-million-acre section of the southern Red Desert. This proposal would compromise 50,000 acres of the proposed expansion of the Adobe Town Wilderness Study Area, impair the eligibility of the Monument Valley Management Area for designation as a protected Area of Critical Environmental Concern, sever the Powder Rim Wildlife Linkage, and foreclose other environmentally protective management and mitigation measures that may be considered in the ongoing revision of the Great Divide Resource Management Plan. WRA represents a coalition of conservation organizations in an appeal of the “Desolation Flats” drilling proposal and is actively monitoring site-specific drilling projects. For more information, click here.
Read more about the "Desolation Flats" gas project in Wyoming’s largest and most spectacular desert wilderness.

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