BLM proposes opening more of North Fork to oil and gas

New 30,000-acre area surrounds town of Paonia

Natural gas developers could be getting access to 30,000 acres in Gunnison and Delta counties if the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) goes through with a lease sale scheduled for August 2012. The BLM has set a January 9 deadline for public comments on specific parcels being proposed for the sale.

The 22 parcels span areas of the North Fork Valley between the two counties where natural gas development has already taken off over the last decade, with the establishment in 2006 of the 20,000-acre Bull Mountain Unit encompassing most of the land west of Paonia Reservoir.
According to BLM maps of the lease proposal, the newly nominated areas would make eligible for gas development much of the land on the east side of the reservoir as well, with the exception of the 5,000-acre Bear Ranch, which is privately owned by mineral mogul Bill Koch. Nominated parcels also surround the town of Paonia and nearly all of Crawford and Hotchkiss as well.
In the process of making public lands eligible for mineral development, parcels that have been identified in the BLM’s Resource Management Plan as being appropriate for development need to be nominated for leasing.
In the past the BLM has made the nominating party public, as it did when parcels were nominated for geothermal leasing near Tomichi Dome.
But High Country Citizens’ Alliance director of public lands Matt Reed says, “We don’t know who nominated the lease and we can’t find out.” The BLM’s Uncompahgre Field Office in Montrose, which is handling the leasing, won’t make that information public. At least one Freedom of Information Act request is in the pipeline.
The party that nominates the lease, which could be a person or an anonymous limited liability company, isn’t necessarily the party that wins the leases at auction and develops the gas field. Nor is it guaranteed that the nominated parcels will be opened up to drilling at all.
In addition to a request by HCCA to extend the public comment period part of the scoping process that is currently under way, many of the farmers growing organic or chemical-free produce in the North Fork Valley are asking the BLM to extend the public comment period and then throw out the nomination altogether.
Former Crested Butte resident Alison Gannett, now owner of the Holy Terror Farm where more than 200 varieties of fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown without the use of chemicals, says the chemical-free designation of her produce, and the “organic” designations many of her neighbors’ produce has, would be in jeopardy if any amount of chemical were to contaminate their irrigation water.
“We belong to the Valley Organic Growers’ Association and there’s not a [VOGA] farm that isn’t touching a [nominated] parcel or doesn’t have their water come from within a parcel,” Gannett says.
Holy Terror Farm gets its own irrigation water from a surface ditch that runs out of lease #6207, which borders about 3,000 feet of Gannett’s property. But the water is only a part of the concern, since volatile organic compounds released from producing gas wells has been linked to negative impacts on human health.
And while Gannett’s farm has been operating since 1889, many of its neighbors have played a part in changing the landscape and economy of the North Fork Valley over the last 20 years to one dependent on clean air, clean water and expansive, unspoiled vistas.
Together, the attributes of the North Fork have drawn a progressively greater number of agri-tourists, Gannett says, who come to the valley to see where food comes from. A school group from Boulder recently showed interest in paying a visit.
“There are the actual threats of the noise, the dust, and the traffic and possibly air and water pollution,” Gannett says, adding that new roads would likely have to be developed to serve any future gas field. “But there are also the perceived issues, and I don’t think a school is going to do a tour of a farm if there’s a big drilling rig right there.”
Gannett and her neighbors “aren’t paying the mortgage selling carrots,” and count on the agri-tourism to make ends meet, she says.
But the BLM hasn’t appeared to notice the new economy in the North Fork. The Resource Management Plan (RMP) that determined a majority of the valley to be suitable for mineral development, and is now being employed to justify the nomination of the leases, was approved 22 years ago.
Even then, two decades ago, the proposed leases would have encompassed nearly every municipal source of water the town of Paonia has.
“Yet they’re indicating they are going to rely on the [Environmental Impact Statement] that was done as part of the 1989 RMP for the proposed leases,” Reed says. The BLM has already created a new RMP, which is in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessment phase and should be released in the next couple of years.
So HCCA, as well as the Gunnison and Delta boards of county commissioners and a group from the North Fork, have asked the BLM to delay extending the public hearing beyond the January 9 closing date, which all three groups felt was unreasonable, with the holidays between now and then.
In a letter to the BLM asking that two parcels in Gunnison County be removed from the lease nomination, the Gunnison BOCC listed rock fall hazards on Highway 133, visual impacts to the West Elk Loop scenic byway, potential impacts to Paonia Reservoir and impacts to elk and moose habitat as reasons the parcels weren’t appropriate for gas development.HCCA has also expressed concern to the BLM over the size of the proposed lease area and the potential impacts development of those leases would have on places like Paonia Reservoir and the towns of Paonia, Hotchkiss and Crawford.
The threat to their livelihood has led Gannett to start a petition to “save” her farm and those of her neighbors by asking the BLM to remove the leases from consideration. Her group is also asking the BLM to host a public hearing for the residents of the North Fork to share their concerns and then conduct a full environmental impact statement, as opposed to the less stringent environmental assessment.
“They could suspend the decision until the RMP has been updated,” Gannett says.
Written comments related to the nominations can be sent to [email protected].