Oil Well Likely In New Monument Opponents Incredulous That Blm Says Drilling Will Have No Impact
An oil well on federal land within the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument probably will be approved, a document issued this week shows.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released a revised environmental assessment Tuesday that responds to 770 comments submitted since May on Conoco’s proposed well atop the Kaiparowits Plateau. The vast majority of comments were from people opposed to the project.
But BLM experts heard nothing that altered previous findings showing little damage from the drilling, so the revised document restates the agency’s conclusion that development of the well would not significantly impact the environment.
The public has 15 days to comment on the revised report before a final decision to approve or deny the oil well is made sometime during the second week of September, said Gregory F. Thayn, environmental coordinator for BLM’s Utah office.
Environmentalists are unhappy about BLM’s conclusion.
“It is absurd to suggest there will be no significant impact from Conoco’s proposal to drill for oil in the nation’s newest national monument,” said Lawson LeGate, southwestern regional representative for the Sierra Club. “This is unprecedented.”
Approval for one well opens the door for development of an entire oil field if a large petroleum deposit is found, said LeGate, so BLM should do a detailed environmental impact statement that considers the impact of full-scale development.
But Thayn said BLM’s regulations and several court rulings direct the agency to focus on the impacts of the single well proposed by Conoco. The prospect of full-scale development is too speculative to justify a full study at this time, he said.
Thus BLM’s analysis focuses on the impacts of one well. The well is proposed for a site adjacent to an existing dirt road in an area that twice previously has been disturbed by exploratory drilling - first in 1954 and again in 1963. The oil and gas lease held by Conoco was issued Nov. 1, 1987 - almost nine years before the monument was designated.
The revised environmental study finds drilling there can be done without significant impacts to such things as archaeological sites, threatened and endangered species, ground water, surface water or air quality. The land would be revegetated after drilling.
Conoco officials have not yet seen BLM’s revised report, but spokesman John Bennitt said “we would expect the same results as before.”
This would be Conoco’s second well within the boundaries of the new national monument. The first well is being drilled on a piece of land owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.
The state-owned parcel is not covered by the same protective restrictions as the surrounding federal land.
Conoco’s geologists believe a vast deposit of oil could be trapped in ancient rocks much deeper than sampled by the previous companies that drilled in the area. The drilling is to determine whether they are right. Only about one in 10 exploratory wells drilled by companies hit oil.
xxxx THE REPORT The revised environmental study finds drilling there can be done without significant impacts to such things as archaeological sites, threatened and endangered species, ground water, surface water or air quality.