The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is countering charges by Questar Gas Co. that the high price of natural gas is the result of "misguided environmental opposition."

In recent billing statements sent to its customers, the Salt Lake-based utility included a letter pinning the high prices, in part, on environmentalists, saying that the nation has chosen to leave large amounts of natural gas resources off limits to development and production.

Stephen Bloch, a staff attorney for SUWA, said that is not the case.

"We're not going to stand by and allow Questar to have this type of scapegoat propaganda campaign," Bloch said Monday. "And we're not going to allow them to send these mailers to a captive audience claiming, with no support, that environmental opposition is the reason why Utahns are paying high prices for natural gas."

Bloch cited a 2003 Interior Department report that said 88 percent of the Rocky Mountain region's "technically recoverable" natural gas located on federal lands is available for leasing and development.

"The industry is holding thousands of already approved permits in their pocket," Bloch said. "And the reason for not being able to drill these has nothing to do with environmental opposition and has everything to do with a shortage of drill rigs and a shortage of workers."

Chad Jones, a spokesman for Questar Gas, agrees that there are many areas in the U.S. where natural gas is technically recoverable, but he said that does not mean it is economically recoverable.

"What makes them less economical to recover are all the restrictions," Jones said, pointing to a 20-page flowchart that shows the lengthy process for obtaining approval to drill an oil or natural gas well.

"I think our customers would be amazed at the number of boxes there are on the flowchart that we go through to get a well approved. There are hundreds of them," Jones said. "Every one of those boxes represents incremental costs to the end-use customer."

Jones said about 188 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Rockies are closed to development or available with restrictions.

In 2005, Questar raised its rates 38 percent. Last week, the utility asked for an 8 percent rate reduction to go into effect Feb. 1.

Bloch said that of the 5,077 approved drilling permits in Utah from 2001-2005, just five were challenged by SUWA.

Don Banks, spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management's state office in Salt Lake City, said of the 23 million acres of BLM surface lands in Utah, roughly 4 million acres is under lease.