WASHINGTON (October 18, 2006) – The Bush Administration is putting plans in place to approve more than 118,000 new gas and oil wells on public lands in Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana over the next two decades, which is nearly double the current total number of producing wells on public lands throughout the Rocky Mountains. The drilling boom and its devastating implications for Western public lands are documented in a new Wilderness Society preliminary analysis, which was released today along with a list of 17 still wild but unprotected areas threatened by oil and gas drilling that the group calls Too Wild to Drill. The list includes five sites in Colorado, four in Wyoming, and 8 others in Alaska, California, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Utah.
"Oil and gas development is a legitimate activity on public lands, but the administration is not meeting its responsibilities to balance this development with its legal obligations to protect the air, water, and wildlife," said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. "We are about to see gas drilling at a magnitude greater than anything we've experienced, and it threatens to forever damage many of our most treasured Western places."
Approximately 63,000 wells are currently producing on public lands. Because the average well impacts approximately 10 acres, a future drilling boom of 118,000 wells could mar more than 1 million Western acres, fragmenting wildlife habitat and polluting air and water. Wyoming leads the way with 50,528 planned new wells. The other totals are: Montana, 26,095; Colorado, 22,802; New Mexico, 11,273; and Utah, 8,502. These results are from a preliminary review of pending and current federal actions authorizing drilling of new wells, which was conducted to gauge the magnitude of drilling being approved, and likely underestimates the magnitude of drilling activities that could occur on public lands in the region.
"Considering the impact that 63,000 producing wells are already having on our public lands, it is hard to imagine, let alone accept, how our water, air, and wildlife will be affected by twice as many new wells," said Nada Culver of The Wilderness Society's BLM Action Center, which completed the analysis. "Even the agencies responsible for managing our public lands are uncomfortable with the relentless push for more leasing. The administration needs to scale back and stop going after our most fragile public lands."
The report and analysis of future wells comes hot on the heels of a number of setbacks for the Administration's oil and gas program in the courts, including an August 2, 2006 federal district court decision in which the court ruled that the BLM violated federal environmental laws when it sold oil and gas leases on 16 parcels of wilderness-quality lands in southern Utah. In that case the court stated that federal law required "that BLM postpone leasing in areas where the agency had significant new information about wilderness values that had not been adequately accounted for." In another court action, on September 25, 2006, an Alaska federal district court judge rejected an Interior Department drilling plan and forced the BLM to postpone its planned lease sale of more than 400,000 acres in the Teshekpuk Lake area of Alaska. In January, a federal court in Montana suspended leases issued without thorough consideration of the risks from oil and gas drilling and required the BLM to prove it had complied with the court's order, because of its concern that the agency was treating the environmental laws as "a series of hurdles to be cleared en route to a predetermined result" - namely, more leasing. In both July and September, the Interior Board of Land Appeals overturned lease sales in Wyoming's Bridger Teton National Forest, based on the failure to fully examine the potential damage to air quality and wildlife.
"The oil and gas industry has such incredible access that it cannot even responsibly drill on its current leases," said The Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth. "Yet, the administration is bending over backward to allow leasing and drilling in municipal watersheds, proposed wilderness, and sensitive habitats like Wyoming's Pinedale Anticline, part of an irreplaceable big game migration corridor."
With federal agencies so overwhelmed by the pace of drilling, it is unclear how they plan to adequately protect public health, wildlife, air, and water quality as drilling further expands. A 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office, for example, notes that the BLM's increased oil and gas permitting activity "has lessened BLM's ability to meet its environmental protection responsibilities." In Wyoming, the BLM itself has documented its failure to uphold many of the mitigation and monitoring commitments it made in past oil and gas decisions in the Upper Green River Valley.
The vast majority of publicly-owned oil and gas resources in the Rocky Mountain region already are available for leasing and development. In fact, a 2003 BLM report indicates that 85 percent of the oil and 88 percent of gas on federal lands in Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Utah and Wyoming are available for leasing and development. Today, approximately 36 million acres of onshore public lands are under lease for oil and gas development. Now there is a growing concern among residents, western governors, hunters and anglers, ranchers and farmers, and local elected officials that unchecked oil and gas drilling will damage special natural places.
A growing number of local coalitions have formed to protect places like the Wyoming Range, Colorado's Roan Plateau, and New Mexico's Valle Vidal. The Too Wild to Drill report shows how these coalitions - made up of Republicans, Democrats, ranchers, home owners, wildlife biologists, farmers, hunters, anglers, recreationists, county commissioners, governors, and business owners - are increasingly speaking out. The Wilderness Society and its partners agree that there are many places appropriate to drill, but where development is appropriate it must be done responsibly. At the same time, some places - like many of the places highlighted in this report - are Too Wild to Drill.
"America has the technological and intellectual resources and the can-do spirit to solve our energy puzzle without ruining our public lands heritage - by making our cars go further on a gallon of gas, and taking real steps to move away from oil toward cleaner, safer, renewable sources of energy," said Eleanor Huffines, Alaska Regional Director for The Wilderness Society. "Unfortunately Congress and the Interior Department have been pushing for more and more drilling, and neglecting the steps that could break our oil addiction forever."
Too Wild to Drill provides an update on the current energy status for each of the profiled areas, analyzes what's at stake in that particular region, highlights local individuals and groups involved, and offers potential solutions to balancing oil and gas development while protecting many of the natural resources that enhance the West's quality of life. The executive summary of the report has detailed information and sourcing on acreage now under lease, drilling permits, actual wells drilled, and alternative ways of helping America achieve energy independence. The report is available online.
The wild lands highlighted in The Wilderness Society's report include:
