Rock the Earth Files Protest Letter on BLM's Roan Plateau Plan

Rock The Earth, along with over a dozen other non-governmental organization (NGO) groups, filed a protest letter on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) proposed plan for the Roan Plateau, a popular and ecologically sensitive area of public lands in Northwest Colorado. This land has been the subject of a six-year planning process in which the public overwhelmingly has supported protection of the wilderness characteristics of the area and keeping the Roan Plateau as it is, a mecca for natural outdoor recreation.

BLM's proposed plan, issued in September 2006, prioritizes oil & gas field development and production at the expense of traditional public recreational uses, and will degrade the area's many important natural surface resources, including wilderness characteristics and wildlife. For example, the final environmental impact statement in the BLM plan notes that "Although public comments on the [draft Environmental Impact Statement] indicate a demand for undeveloped recreation settings, BLM has concluded that management to accommodate substantial oil and gas development precludes maintaining characteristics specific to undeveloped recreation settings."

Rock The Earth filed a comment letter to the BLM 2005 Draft Roan Plateau Management Plan. This letter provided detailed analysis of substantial global data that demonstrates there are proven and cost-effective drilling technologies available today to develop the oil and gas reserves underlying the Roan Plateau planning area while allowing long-term protection of the land's wilderness characteristics and multiple natural scenic and recreational uses. We provided an example scenario whereby institutionalization of currently available technology would allow the Management Plan to satisfy BLM's multiple use mandate, and provide a win-win solution that would provide long-term protection of wilderness characteristics and traditional recreational opportunities for the public, while allowing adequate recovery of oil and gas underneath the planning area.

BLM's proposed final plan acknowledges only a narrow fraction of currently available drilling technology capabilities in constraining the density of surface disturbance allowed for oil and gas development over the planning area. The plan also provides no mechanisms for mandating implementation of advances in drilling technologies to lessen surface impacts in the future as technology improves. Therefore, the proposed plan needlessly jeopardizes the area's wilderness and wildlife. Rock The Earth's protest letter pointed out BLM's failure to consider the best available technologies and to meet its legal requirements as steward for public interests in developing a management plan that will best meet the multiple uses warranted by the inherent natural qualities of the Roan Plateau.

Since release of the plan, local governments, US Senator Ken Salazar and Representative Diana DeGette have joined NGOs in again urging that BLM fully consider a management plan that properly protects the Roan Plateau, and are calling for a new public comment period before BLM issues a final decision.

For more information, background, or the latest developments regarding this project, see the Roan Plateau Project Page on the RtE website.

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