The Bureau of Land Management has expanded its oil and gas lease program in eastern Utah to include tens of thousands of hectares on or near the boundaries of three national parks, according to revised maps published this week.
National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine.
The inclusion of the new lease tracts angered environmental groups, which were already critical of the bureau’s original lease proposal, made public this fall, because they said it could lead to industrial activity in empty areas of the state, some prized for their sweeping vistas, like Desolation Canyon, and others for their ancient petroglyphs, like Nine Mile Canyon.
The bureau’s new maps, made public on Election Day, show not just those empty areas but 40 to 45 new areas where leasing will also be allowed.
The tracts will be sold at auction on Dec. 19, the last lease sale before US President George W. Bush leaves office a month later. The new leases were added after a map of the proposed tracts was given to the National Park Service for comment this fall. The proximity of industrial activity concerns park managers, who worry about the environmental impact on the park, as well as the potential for noise, said Michael Snyder, a regional director of the Park Service.
Kent Hoffman, a deputy director of the land management bureau’s Utah office, said the Park Service had ample opportunity to review the broad management plan under which the leases were developed, even if it was not given the usual notice of which leases were being offered for sale.
Hoffman said that 37 days remained to air any protests and review the decision about which tracts to lease.
If any leases are sold on Dec. 19 and subsequently delivered to the buyers before Inauguration Day, however, it will be difficult for the new administration to reverse those decisions.
The perennial struggle over the use of public lands in the West has been particularly acute in Utah.
Kathleen Sgamma, the government affairs director of the Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States, said of the new lease proposals, “If you can’t develop oil and natural gas in this part of rural Utah, we might as well concede the United States has lost all interest in energy security.”
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