BLM oil-gas lease sale draws lots of flak

Environmentalists, river guides, counties and would-be developers are protesting a huge oil and gas lease sale that the Bureau of Land Management plans to hold May 16.

With both sides protesting, said Adrienne Babbitt, spokeswoman for the BLM in Utah, "we're probably doing our jobs right.

"We're making sure that we're protecting the places that are special, with stipulations or that sort of thing, or we're simply not offering them at this time."

Last month BLM officials said its planned leasing of 440,000 acres in Utah for oil and gas development was the largest such sale the agency has held in the state. Two-thirds of the parcels were deferred during previous sales.

Most of the sites are on land managed by the agency's Price, Richfield, Fillmore and Cedar City field offices.

On Thursday, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, The Wilderness Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced they are protesting leasing in 23 parcels.

Eighteen of these are near Capitol Reef National Park's Cathedral Valley while five are in the Nine Mile Canyon Region, "an area that is world-renowned for its fragile Native American rock art," says a press release by the group.

The group noted that river outfitters also are submitting formal protests. Some of the land is near the San Rafael and Green rivers, while other parcels "are proposed for designation as areas of critical environmental concern," the environmentalists added.

Stephen Bloch, SUWA attorney, said the group has three suits pending in federal court concerning BLM lease sales carried out in February 2000, November 2003 and September 2004.

Asked if the upcoming sale could be targeted by a suit also, he replied, "Sure. The Bush administration, the Department of the Interior, have been very aggressive in leasing the most spectacular public lands in Utah and across the West.

"And we believe that those aggressive leasing decisions call for an aggressive response from us."

Bloch said the National Park Service had concerns about the sale of leases near Capitol Reef and wrote to the BLM concerning issues like preserving the dark night skies and natural quiet in the park.