Board overturns BLM on leases

The Interior Department Board of Land Appeals has overturned the Bureau of Land Management in a controversy about oil and gas leasing in eastern Utah.

Siding with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance on whether the BLM carried out the proper environmental documentation on 16 parcels of land, the board sent the matter back to the BLM for reconsideration.

Two administrative law judges of the appeals board wrote that the agency should not have relied solely on worksheets affirming that potential projects met requirements of federal environmental law. Instead, actual environmental study was needed for parcels that SUWA and the BLM say could meet standards for establishing Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.

The lease sale happened on Aug. 19, 2003, after some other parcels were withdrawn because of potential environmental problems. SUWA protested the procedure on 19 of the parcels, and the appeals board ruled against the BLM on 16 of them. SUWA says the 16 parcels' area totals 14,000 acres.

Requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act are at the heart of the decision.

Eleven of the 16 parcels are located just north of Nine Mile Canyon, according to a SUWA press release. The canyon is famous for its ancient rock art. Three other parcels are along the southern slope of the Book Cliffs and the final two are south of Dinosaur National Monument, according to the group.

The appeals board wrote about "boxes of information compiled in a manner presumably meaningful to BLM at the time it made its decision, but difficult for us to decipher."

Besides criticizing the BLM's failure to document values, the board also faulted the agency for failing to consult with Indian tribes in a meaningful way. But it also knocked SUWA.

The lack of information in the record about whether Areas of Critical Environmental Concern should be designated "weighs in favor of BLM and against SUWA," the decision says. "SUWA has not submitted any document into the record to support its suggestion of new and significant information ... that BLM should have considered."

The decision was signed by Administrative Judges Lisa Hemmer and T. Britt Price, based in Arlington, Va.

Stephen Bloch, lawyer for SUWA, said the environmental group was pleased with the decision. "The BLM's own administrative board won't allow the BLM to follow the illegal practice of leasing first and thinking later," he said.