The Arizona Central
Feb. 4, 2004
FARMINGTON, N.M. - Conservationists, Navajo groups and ranchers sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday, saying the agency needs more work on its plan for more than 9,900 new oil and gas wells in the San Juan Basin.
The coalition of groups filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., contending the BLM's plan will lead to the destruction of northwestern New Mexico area's ranching economy, its air quality and thousands of American Indian cultural sites.
The 43-page lawsuit asks the court to set aside the BLM plan until it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the federal Land Policy and Management Act.
"We're not opposed to development of the resources," said Dan Randolph of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, one of the coalition members. "What we think is the BLM failed to properly analyze and also mitigate and plan for both the consequences of this and also for other values on the land."
The lawsuit wants the bureau to "go back and do a better job of analyzing the impacts and making sure the Farmington district doesn't become a one-use area - oil and gas being that one use," he said.
The lawsuit contends the BLM failed to prepare an environmental impact statement or analyze the cumulative effects of oil and gas development across the basin; analyze reasonable alternatives; study the impact of gas development on air, water, range and cultural resources; adequately consult tribes to identify areas of cultural and religious importance; adopt sufficient mitigation measures; and prevent unnecessary degradation of resources.
Ranchers feel they are losing control over grazing allotments, and local Navajo Nation groups feel their interests - ranging from their ability to ranch and remain on the land to cultural issues - have been ignored, Randolph said.
The coalition believes oil and gas can be extracted "in a manner compatible with those other uses if done correctly," he said. "That's not what the BLM has proposed doing."
Similar complaints have cropped up around the Rockies, which the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has described as "ground zero" in the Bush administration's push for increased domestic energy development.
The government estimates Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming contain 41 percent of the nation's gas reserves.
The San Juan Basin, which covers 7,800 square miles in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado, produces 10 percent of U.S. natural gas.
Randolph said the coalition tried to offer compromises to the BLM, but the agency "ignored the efforts of community groups, Navajo chapters, landowners and the public in its rush to fast-track a national energy plan."
A BLM spokesman in Santa Fe, Hans Stuart, said Wednesday the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
However, the BLM, in its resource management plan released last September for the San Juan Basin, said it already had leased virtually all of the basin with high potential for oil and gas development. The plan does not approve individual projects, but rather provides guidelines for managing minerals and public lands.
Major decisions in the plan include allowing continued development of 2.6 million acres of public land for oil and gas, including minerals owned by the federal government beneath land it does not own.
The plan would place seasonal restrictions on important deer and elk wintering habitat and would restrict off-road vehicles. It also would make 340,000 acres of BLM land available for sale or exchange, and proposes that the BLM acquire more than 178,000 acres to consolidate public land and make other areas available for urban expansion.
Ranchers and environmentalists have complained for more than a year about drilling on ranchers' portions of one of the world's largest and richest natural gas reserves. They say drilling has led to erosion, water contamination, a decline in range quality and livestock deaths.
The lawsuit alleges the BLM failed to comply with many of the mitigation, reclamation and other environmental protection measures that have been required by federal law for more than a decade.
Tweeti Blancett, a sixth-generation rancher involved in the coalition, has called the situation "a David and Goliath issue."
The lawsuit was filed against the BLM; its parent agency, the Department of the Interior; Interior Secretary Gale Norton; BLM Director Kathleen Clarke; and the BLM's state director, Linda S. Rundell.
It was filed by the San Juan Citizens Alliance, Dine Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Blancett, rancher Don Schrieber and the Navajo Nation's Counselor, Pueblo Pintado and the Huerfano chapters.