Oil lease near Canyonlands draws flak

The National Park Service has filed objections with the Bureau of Land Management over plans for oil and gas drilling in eastern Utah, saying the rigs would spoil the expansive, lonely view from Canyonlands National Park.

The BLM plans to lease two parcels outside the 527-square-mile park, where drill rigs would compete with a landscape of towering buttes and mesa tops against the 12,000-foot La Sal Mountains.

The bureau dropped two other proposed parcels in the area because of park service objections, and BLM officials say they'll reconsider objections to other leasing tracts a week before the Aug. 16 auction. The auction is set to offer a total of 198,000 acres of BLM and national forest lands for oil and gas drilling.

That leaves about 3,200 acres of land in play for leasing that "contribute to the exceptional landscape as viewed and experienced from the rims on BLM lands and as viewed from scenic overlooks within Canyonlands National Park," Park Service Southeast Utah Group Superintendent Tony Schetzsle said in a letter objecting to the scope of the proposal.

The contested parcels are four miles east of Canyonlands' Needles district.

BLM officials didn't have an immediate response Friday, but they've pulled parcels before based on their proximity to national parks or monuments. Last December, the agency dropped plans to lease lands within view of Hovenweep National Monument on the Utah-Colorado border. The possibility of drilling on those tracts drew protests from archeologists, conservation groups and a former park ranger.

"If Utah wants to be a world-class adventure destination, we must protect our public lands. This means we're going to have to make choices," said Ashley Kornblat, president of Moab outfitter Western Spirit Cycling and a member of Gov. Jon Huntsman's outdoor-industry task force.

Utah has a surplus of unused BLM lands under lease for oil and gas development, said Stephen Bloch, a staff lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. He said BLM figures have fewer than 1 million of 3.3 million leased acres under production.

"When it comes to developing our public lands, the BLM won't listen to reason, not even when the National Park Service warns about impacts to one of America's most breathtaking parks," he said.

Conservation groups are protesting the leasing of another 29 parcels they've earmarked for wilderness protection in eastern Utah's Book Cliffs region and western Utah's basin and range mountains.

The energy reserves are needed, said Lee Peacock, president of the Utah Petroleum Association, who offered a standing statement to environmental objections.

"Everyone wishes we could find oil and gas in nice, easy places, but those places are gone, used up. The oil and gas potential is evolving into more sensitive areas. We have to make a decision as a society to allow the responsible development of oil and gas leases on public lands," he said.

BLM's last Utah auction leased 232,257 acres in May and raised $13.4 million, with half going to the state.