Bill would put Roan lease areas in wilderness
Bill would put Roan lease areas in wilderness
October 5, 2009
By: Dennis Webb
Draft legislation by a Denver congresswoman for new Colorado wilderness areas could trigger debate about whether wilderness and drilling can exist side by side on the Roan Plateau near Rifle.
Bill would put Roan lease areas in wilderness
October 5, 2009
By: Dennis Webb
Draft legislation by a Denver congresswoman for new Coloradowilderness areas could trigger debate about whether wilderness anddrilling can exist side by side on the Roan Plateau near Rifle.
The proposal includes more than 40,000 acres encompassing much of the 55,000 acres that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management leased last year for oil and gas development on and around the Roan Plateau top.
Federal wilderness is off-limits to activities such as vehicle use and energy development.
Spokesman Kristofer Eisenla said DeGette's proposal would designate wilderness in valleys and cliff areas, whereas many of the proposed drilling locations are just off roads that follow the tops of ridgelines.
"Feasibly, they could probably coexist together," Eisenla said.
Conservation groups have sued to challenge the Roan leases and are in settlement talks with lease holders and the government. No drilling has occurred under the leases.
Bill Barrett Corp. has a 90 percent interest in about 40,000 acres of Roan leases. Barrett spokesman Jim Felton said he hadn't seen DeGette's bill.
He said courts generally have recognized leases and land uses in cases in which the government later changes how land can be used. Leases such as those on the Roan Plateau are contracts between the government and lease holders, he said.
"We would vigorously protect our property rights there," Felton said.
Some of the leases on the plateau include stipulations prohibiting surface disturbance, meaning the gas beneath the leased lands would have to be tapped by drilling directionally from elsewhere. Eisenla said land that DeGette's measure seeks to protect on the plateau tends to overlap land the BLM has designated as areas of critical environmental concern.
Felton said that nationally, 20 percent of land under Department of Interior control already is wilderness.
Eisenla said the point of DeGette's initial bill is just to get feedback, and any concerns will be considered before a final bill is introduced.
DeGette has tried since 1999 to get similar Colorado wilderness legislation passed, but this year her party controls the House, Senate and White House.
She is proposing wilderness in several areas in Mesa County, including Bangs Canyon, the Little Bookcliffs, Unaweep, the Palisade, Granite Creek and South Shale Ridge.