Proposed energy corridor may pass just south of Gunnison

Public comment wanted on interstate proposal

A proposed 3,700-mile expansion of energy transport infrastructure corridors—including a major section just south of Gunnison—is likely to pit the nation’s expanding energy use against efforts to preserve wildlife and scenic values.

The network of pathways will provide space for natural gas, oil and hydrogen pipelines as well as electricity transmission lines.
On November 8, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and Defense released for public review and comment a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft PEIS) proposing designation of energy transport corridors on federal lands in 11 western states.
About 75 percent of the designated routes in Colorado follow existing roadways or utility lines. However, the proposal shows multiple segments of the corridors crossing or passing within five miles of “sensitive visual resource areas,” including the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the Curecanti National Recreation Area and the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass.
The proposal envisions a major segment of the corridor running just south of Gunnison. The Gunnison County segment would pass near Curecanti National Recreation Area south of the Blue Mesa reservoir before heading northeast toward Monarch Pass. The corridor would cross State Highway 50 about 30 miles west of Gunnison and again about 15 miles east of Gunnison.
BLM spokesperson Heather Feeney says the 2005 Energy Policy Act created a mandate for federal agencies to designate the energy transport corridors.
“That’s what Congress directed us to do,” she says.
The act also ordered environmental reviews to be completed for the designation of such corridors.
However, Feeney says, designation of the corridors doesn’t mean that projects—such as construction of natural gas pipelines—will necessarily take place.
“This is an administrative exercise of drawing lines on a map,” she says.
The idea, according to Feeney, is to encourage energy companies to centrally locate their infrastructure needs so that disturbance of public land is minimized. However, Feeney noted that designation of the corridors would not preclude energy companies using other infrastructure routes.
Peter Hart of Wilderness Workshop, an environmental organization based in Carbondale, Colo., says he welcomes the effort by the federal agencies to plan on a regional scale. But he is skeptical about the assertion that designating the corridors will not necessarily facilitate development.
“What we’re seeing is the authorization of a lot of these projects,” says Hart.
“It’s like the giving the energy companies a green light to fill them in.”
Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States, says such corridor designations are necessary to meet future energy needs.
“These routes are critical to ensure consumers have reliable sources of energy,” he says.
Smith says that by designating the corridors, energy companies can avoid excessive environmental disturbances.
“This way, (the federal agencies) can get plenty of input from locals in order to have the least environmental impact,” he says.
Hart says the corridors will encourage carbon-intensive industries without taking into consideration the cumulative impacts. Hart says the gas and oil boom that the western states have experienced in the last few years has degraded air quality and increased CO2 emissions.
“I think we should be putting more stock in renewable energy sources rather than busting through the landscape to facilitate oil and gas development,” he says.
To comment on or review the draft proposal and related documents, including detailed maps, go to http://www.corridoreis.anl.gov. Review copies are also available at libraries and agency regional and field offices.
The comment period for the PEIS is open until February 14, 2008.