Will an oil and gas exploration well be drilled inside southern Utah's Glen Canyon National Recreation Area?

Two federal agencies have begun a scoping process to consider a 15-year-old request to drill an exploratory well for oil and gas in the Circle Cliffs region in Garfield County. The cliffs are a large geologic structure in the national recreation area near the Escalante River, southeast of Boulder.

Public comments on the scoping process, which is intended to lead to a draft environmental assessment, will be accepted until July 7.

According to the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, the well would be on a lease owned by Viking Oil Exploration Inc. The agencies, which issued a press release on the project, did not list a home base for Viking.

On Oct. 1, 1969, Viking Oil was granted mineral rights to explore for petroleum deposits on 9,730 acres of federal land in southern Utah, areas which are now part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Capitol Reef National Park, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monu- ment.

"At that time, all the land covered under the lease was administered by the BLM," says the press release.

On June 29, 1990, Viking Oil asked for permission to drill an oil and gas exploration well in the Circle Cliffs area, part of Glen Canyon, says the National Park Service site on the Internet concerning the project. The well site would take up two acres, and to reach it, Viking would use "several miles of new or reconstructed roads" in the recreation area and existing routes in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The agencies are planning to prepare an environmental assessment to evaluate the proposal, and they want public comments and suggestions.

"This is the time when any interested individual, organization or agency can provide thoughtful, relevant information or suggestions for consideration by NPS and BLM managers before the Draft Environmental Assessment is written and made available for public review," says a written press release. The assessment should be available for public review some- time next winter.

The agencies are providing two ways to make comments, and are reminding that names and addresses of those who comment ordinarily become part of the public record. People who wish to withhold names or addresses should state that prominently at the beginning of their comments.

To comment, mail a note to: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Viking Exploration EA, 691 Science View Drive, P.O. Box 1507, Page, AZ 86040.