The final countdown has begun for an oil and gas lease sale in Southwest Colorado.

The public has until Mon., Sept. 17, to comment on 12 oil and gas leases coming up for sale at the beginning of next year. Eight of the parcels are located southwest of Hesperus, tucked between highways 160 and 140 and covering more than 10,000 acres.

The preliminary Environmental Assessment, released by the Bureau of Land Management on Aug. 17, looked at the potential effects of the sale and possible stipulations for each parcel. It did not, however, examine the effects of potential drilling. That process is reserved for the development stage once the sale is complete.

Following the comment period, the BLM will examine the comments, make necessary changes, and in November, release a final list of the parcels to go up for auction come Feb. 14, 2013.

The BLM does not choose which lands or mineral rights to lease. The process begins with nominations from the public.

Developers, land owners or anyone else from the public can nominate lands for oil and gas development. These lands are then examined for potential mineral leasing and an environmental assessment is prepared.

A two-week public scoping process in June preceded the release of the preliminary EA, but not everyone thought that was enough time. A common thread among the comments and letters submitted during that public scoping period was a request for more time from the BLM.

 

The Florida Mesa Fire Protection District, which covers Hesperus, asked BLM officials to postpone the sales so they had time to determine the impacts on their volunteer department. Also, several letters submitted by property owners in the Vista de Oro neighborhood, including the Vista de Oro Property Owners Association, referred to having less than two weeks to comment on the proposed leases after learning of them. They stated it was not long enough to review the documentation and provide a cogent response.

On Aug. 30, Jimbo Buickerood, public lands coordinator for the San Juan Citizens Alliance, sent out letters requesting an extension of the public comment period to BLM officials at the local, regional and state levels, but has yet to receive a response.

Public outreach was a key component of the decision to defer oil and gas leases in the same area in 2009. In 2008, parcels were considered for lease but later deferred for “further community outreach by the field office,” according to a January 2009 notice from the BLM state office.

“(Public involvement) is where you come up with answers,” said Josh Joswick, energy issues organizer for the San Juan Citizens Alliance. “That’s where you find out what the issues are.”

However, Shannon Borders, BLM Southwest District public affairs specialist, said that in order to make the February 2013 auction deadline, they must continue on their current timeline, therefore an extension is unlikely.

Oil and gas leases are sold at auction 4 in  a competitive leasing process, and the list of parcels on the block must be published at least 90 days before the auction. In order to make the Feb. 14 deadline, the list needs to be published by mid-November.

Following the public review and comment period, a lease sale notice will be published Nov. 16. This triggers the 30-day protest period, which will be from Nov. 16 - Dec. 17 and cover the Thanksgiving holiday.

BLM officials must receive, respond and make decisions on the protests during this time. Their decisions could be to defer or delay the sale of any of the nominated parcels.

Borders said only those who commented can protest the lease sale.

Another issue repeated in many of the comments is the Resource Management Plan. This document serves as a guide for management decisions. An amendment specific to oil and gas leasing was released in 1991; however, the current version is from 1985.

Buickerood, Joswick and others would like the BLM to wait until a revised plan is issued before selling oil and gas leases, citing a landscape that has changed dramatically since the 1980s and ’90s.

“When you’re talking about documents that in some cases are 25 years old,” Joswick said, “a lot of things have changed in that time.”

One of those changes involves the increase in hydraulic fracturing across the country.

The Environmental Protection Agency is currently conducting a study of hydraulic fracturing and the impact it has on drinking water and ground water. The final results of the study aren’t expected until 2014.

The revised and updated Resource Management Plan is expected to be released next year.

“If we waited, in essence, we would not be able to continue on-the-ground work,” BLM Southwest District public affairs specialist Shannon Borders said. “We expect these individual documents to stand the test of time.”

The preliminary EA released by the BLM in August is a general perspective of the leases as a whole. After a lease is sold, the lessee has 10 years to develop the parcel and once an application is submitted for development, environmental assessments and impact studies essentially start anew.
Joswick raised concerns that the preliminary EA does not examine the drilling methods, formations being drilled into or water sources for things like hydraulic fracturing, among other details.

According to Borders, these issues are some of the site-specific details that would be looked at when the applications are filed.

“That’s problematic because there’s no cumulative analysis,” Joswick said.

Borders said there are steps in the process that would take into account the region, like air modeling. However, it was too early to speculate on potential development and what the area could look like as a whole.

For more information about the lease sale, visit www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/sjplc.html.