Kimball ruled that the BLM "violated NEPA in two independent ways: (1) it sold four leases in the Richfield field office without first preparing an adequate pre-leasing document, and (2) it sold the challenged leases after arbitrarily determining that it did need to supplement existing NEPA analyses in light of the agency's own Wilderness Inventory and subsequent new information provided by Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance."

The decision to sell the four leases from the Richfield field office "was not supported by adequate pre-leasing NEPA analysis," he wrote.

The failure to consider the no-lease alternative "is fatal to the agency's leasing decision. Accordingly, BLM's decision to lease these parcels was contrary to NEPA and must be set aside."

The BLM "ignored significant new information when it decided to lease the 16 parcels at issue without first conducting a supplemental NEPA analysis," the 32-page ruling says.

Concerning nine parcels in the Moab field office area, Kimball found that the BLM "arbitrarily ignored new information (information produced by the agency itself) in an effort to approve oil and gas leasing and ultimately development of these lands."

The BLM can't know the impact of leasing and development on wilderness values if it won't make a supplemental analysis, he wrote.

Kimball said that in light of the BLM errors he cited, it wasn't necessary to consider the argument over the National Historic Preservation Act. The environmentalists won the case without the need of a ruling on that issue.

The BLM's decision denying the environmentalists' protest, and its decision to lease the 16 parcels are "reversed and remanded for further consideration consistent with the court's decision that the Utah BLM violated NEPA," he wrote.

The violations he cited were that BLM leased the four Richfield field office parcels without taking a hard look at a non-leasing alternative, and that it failed to consider significant new information about wilderness values and characteristics of all 16 parcels.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com