Bureau of Land Management map
This map shows areas that would be open (shown in green) and closed (in red) to oil and gas leasing under a revised Bureau of Land Management proposal for two local field offices.
The Bureau of Land Management has released a revised proposal that eases up, when compared to an earlier proposal, when it comes to the amount of area acreage that would be off limits to new oil and gas leasing.
The agency’s revised thinking arises in part out of concerns about the degree to which its earlier proposal would have limited leasing where a helium resource exists northwest of Grand Junction.
The agency on Thursday released a final supplemental environmental impact statement analyzing proposed management changes for the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction field offices. It revisited oil and gas leasing for the two field offices in response to a 2018 court ruling on the Colorado River Valley plan. It is considering an expanded range of management alternatives and reanalyzing air quality to include post-production greenhouse gas emissions, meaning emissions related to the consumer use of oil and gas produced.
Under resource management plans that were challenged in court, the BLM kept 617,700 acres in the Colorado River Valley Field Office open to oil and gas leasing and closed 93,600 acres. For the Grand Junction Field Office it kept 993,300 acres open and closed 242,300 acres.
Under a draft revision proposal, however, it proposed keeping 143,000 acres open for leasing in the Colorado River Valley Field Office and closing 568,300 acres. For the Grand Junction Field Office it proposed keeping 237,600 acres open and closing 998,000 acres.
That draft proposal would have closed all acres with no-known, low or medium oil and gas potential to new leasing, although such an action wouldn’t affect rights associated with existing leases. Responding to industry concerns, though, its new proposal also would keep open for leasing areas of medium oil and gas potential that are adjacent to high-potential areas.
The draft proposal also would have closed to leasing, due to low oil and gas potential, most of the area with recoverable helium within the Grand Junction office. That area is generally north of Interstate 70 and west of Colorado Highway 139. The BLM has previously noted that helium is “a nonrenewable resource found in recoverable quantities in only a few locations around the world; many of these are being depleted,” and that helium is used in diving, manufacturing, medical and numerous other applications.
Forty-two percent of the identified helium area is currently leased. Utah Gas Corp., which holds much of that leased acreage, is working to upgrade an existing gas plant in the area so it can be used for recovery of helium.
The BLM now is proposing preserving the helium field as open to leasing for the purposes of helium recovery. Altogether, it is now proposing keeping 692,300 acres in the Grand Junction Field office open to oil and gas leasing, and closing 543,300 acres. The open area would include about 165,700 acres identified for helium.
Under the revised proposal, 163,000 acres in the Colorado River Valley Field Office would be open to oil and gas leasing and 548,300 acres would be closed.
Under the proposal, some areas of high oil and gas potential, and adjacent areas with medium potential, would be closed to leasing due to resource concerns. But the BLM says leasing in both field offices could continue in about 85% of acres with high potential.
About 56% of federal fluid minerals in high-potential areas in the Colorado River Valley Field Office, and 42% of federal fluid minerals in high-potential areas in the Grand Junction Field Office, already are leased for oil and gas development.
“This proposal reflects valuable comments we received from the public and our cooperating agencies,” BLM Upper Colorado River District Manager Greg Larson said in a news release. “We believe the proposed plan offers a balanced approach to managing the public’s land and resources within the Grand Junction and Colorado River Valley field offices.”
Conservation groups said in a news release that the BLM proposal scales up conservation measures in certain areas by providing additional protections for some of the region’s most sensitive wildlands, but it nevertheless prioritizes extractive development over protection of natural resources.
The Bureau of Land Management has finalized a rule agency officials say will put conservatio…
Said Erin Riccio, advocacy director at the Wilderness Workshop. “The plan leaves 855,300 acres open to oil and gas leasing, which is 30% less closures than the BLM proposed in its preferred alternative in last November’s draft plan. Despite reports stating that closing lands with low to moderate oil and gas potential to leasing will have an ‘insignificant impact’ on regional development, the BLM chose to keep many lands with moderate potential open to new leasing at the expense of other values and our shared climate.”
The oil and gas industry had contended that the BLM in its analysis of management alternatives relies on outdated reasonably foreseeable development scenarios that failed to account for more recent U.S. Geological Survey assessments showing much larger oil and gas reserves in the region. But the BLM says its scenarios remain valid because deeper, shale formations in the area haven’t been targeted for drilling since 2016.
“Protracted periods of low commodity prices over the past several years have had a major impact on drilling,” the BLM says in documents.
“... Market conditions and state regulations appear to have affected fluid mineral development more than geology and estimated reserves.”
The BLM plan is now subject to a 30-day public protest period and 60-day Colorado governor’s consistency review period.
