The area in northwestern Colorado that is being prepared for sacrifice to oil and gas is not like most people’s image of Colorado. This is high desert country more like New Mexico — the arid west that stretches between mountain ranges. Still, it is beautiful country already imperiled by extractive industries. Help save what’s left. mjh
BLM’s New Draft Plan for Northwest Colorado Favors Oil and Gas Development, Threatens Wildlife, Wild Lands and Cultural Artifacts
A plan released … by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would bring more than 3,000 oil and gas wells and associated development to Northwest Colorado’s Moffat and Routt counties, home to one the state’s largest wildland complexes, including the 86,000 acre Vermillion Basin proposed wilderness area. The draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Little Snake Resource Area will determine the fate of 1.3 million acres of public land, including 275,000 acres of citizen-proposed wilderness lands as well as critical big game habitat and migration corridors, the best greater sage-grouse habitat in Colorado, and prized Native American petroglyphs. The top planning issue is how much additional oil and gas drilling will be allowed and where, as rampant energy development encroaches on the Little Snake region from Wyoming to the north and from the Piceance Basin to the south. …
While the draft plan contains some new ideas about how the surface impacts of oil and gas roads, wells, and pipelines might be mitigated, these protections are untested and largely voluntary; the plan contains no guarantees that key sage-grouse habitat and essential big game winter habitat would not be sacrificed over the life of the plan.
“This unbalanced plan essentially gives over the Little Snake Resource Area to the oil and gas industry,” stated Suzanne Jones, Regional Director for The Wilderness Society and a participant in the Northwest Collaborative Stewardship. “We are very disappointed that it fundamentally fails to protect the many other outstanding values of the area that are so important to local citizens and all Americans.”
“Hunting in this area is unparalleled. Big game such as elk and pronghorn are abundant in northwest Colorado because they can easily migrate to the area and thrive here during the winter,” said Luke Schaefer, a Colorado Environmental Coalition employee as well as a Craig resident and avid hunter. “Every year there seems to be fewer and fewer quality hunting grounds left in the West and across Colorado – with all of the development already taking place is the state why would the BLM even consider sacrificing this area?”
http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Release/20070212.cfm
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About SRCA, Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance
BLM has published its Draft Resource Management Plan. You can find this document here.
http://www.southernrockies.org/LSFO/
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NW Colorado’s Canyon Country
“The Colorado Wilderness Network (CWN), the wilderness protection branch of the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance, was formed to protect the year-round wildlife habitat and outstanding opportunities for solitude and backcountry recreation that our canyon county has to offer.”
http://www.savevermillion.org/