|
South Shale Ridge: BLM Readies Assault on More Colorado Wilderness Land
The Bureau of Land Management has proposed to lease another stunning, wild Colorado landscape for oil and gas development. This time it’s South Shale Ridge in western Colorado, part of the citizens’ proposal for Colorado wilderness.
This proposal to lease violates a three-year BLM promise that it would thoroughly consider the best information, including a recent wilderness inventory and two years’ of hard work by citizens, before deciding to lease. The agency has released an environmental assessment of the proposal for public comment. The deadline is Thursday, August 12. Please take a moment today to let the agency know that you want this deserving wilderness protected!
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: No oil and gas leasing in South Shale Ridge
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I am writing in response to the Bureau of Land Management's recent proposal to lease South Shale Ridge for oil and gas.
I strongly oppose the leasing of this area. South Shale Ridge is a rare landscape that holds incredible natural wonders. From the Douglas fir and ponderosa pine along its ridges to the hoodoos of The Goblins, this place is a special Colorado gem that should remain off-limits to drilling.
The Bureau of Land Management itself found that South Shale Ridge has wilderness character and acknowledged that the current Resource Management Plan (RMP) is inadequate to properly protect these wilderness values.
With that in mind, the agency has promised for several years to amend the RMP to protect wilderness values before making the decision to lease. Yet, with the old plan, unamended, still in place, you have released this proposal. The public has been actively involved in this issue. Over 3000 citizens submitted comments and otherwise participated in the review your agency conducted in 1998-99, the very review that concluded this important area qualifies for wilderness protection. Now, the BLM has changed course, reneging on years of public promises as it scurries to do the industry's bidding and to lease these lands.
I urge you not to lease South Shale Ridge until your office can complete a land use plan amendment and update its almost 20-year-old plan to reflect this area's wild values and to set out the means by which they will be protected. This is no more, in fact, than you have repeatedly promised concerned citizens over the last three years that you would do.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Please keep me informed about the project and advised of any additional opportunities to comment.
Sincerely,
|
Campaign Launched:
August 06, 2004
|
Who Says It’s Wilderness? Well, The BLM For One
South Shale Ridge lies near the town of DeBeque in Mesa County, east of Grand Junction. Its 27,632 acres are surrounded by gas fields and other development but are themselves natural. It remains one of Colorado’s most unusual wild places, unique for its landforms, valuable for the critical wildlife habitat it provides, for the more than one dozen endangered, threatened or sensitive species it harbors and for a number of notable cultural sites.
Is it wild? Wild enough that after a review in 1998-99 the BLM itself determined that it is eligible for wilderness protection. That finding has gone by the boards, along with the agency’s pledge to amend its land use plan to account for and protect those wilderness qualities.
The Toll Accelerates
South Shale Ridge is the latest in a long line of special places that could fall to the Bush administration’s frantic energy leasing policies. The BLM reports that it’s on a pace to set another record for oil and gas leases across the West this year, perhaps hitting 6000 by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The agency had issued 3500 leases by June 25, compared to only 4000 in all of 2003.
These are numbers to warm big oil’s heart. But for conservationists, all too many of those leases stand for another glorious wild place lost, or about to be lost, to roads, drill pads, pipeline rights of way and other development facilities.
South Shale Ridge is such a place. It’s a rare, perhaps unique, landscape, a place where Douglas fir and ponderosa pine line the ridges and where wind-sculpted hoodoos stand in an area known as the Goblins. We need your help to protect it!
Please Take Action Today!
Time is very short for South Shale Ridge. The public comment period closes on Thursday, August 12. Please take time today to let the agency know that you want this splendid area protected as the wilderness it clearly is. You can send that message quickly from (Ali-link). Your own thoughts, in your words, are always best; we hope you’ll consider writing your own letter. You can draw the major points from the sample letter below. And if you have visited South Shale Ridge, please describe your experience there in your letter.
Contact Information
Catherine Robinson, Field Office Manager
Bureau of Land Management
Grand Junction Field Office
2815 H Road
Grand Junction, CO 81056
Email: Catherine_robertson@co.blm.gov
Ron Wenker, State Director
Bureau of Land Management
Colorado State Office
2850 Youngfield St.
Lakewood, CO 80215
Email: Ron_Wenker@co.blm.gov
|
