BLM releases list of deferrals on oil, gas lease

The Bureau of Land Management said Friday that it will defer oil and gas leases for about 80,000 acres near Fillmore, west of the Fishlake National Forest.

The deferral came as the agency released its final list of parcels that it plans to pull from an oil and gas lease sale next week.

Earlier Friday, protesters demonstrated in front of the BLM offices in Salt Lake City, aiming to pressure the BLM to keep the oil and gas industry away from national parks and other sensitive areas in Utah.

Utah BLM spokeswoman Megan Crandall said 80,015 acres of parcels near Fillmore were pulled from next Friday's sale, pending completion of an environmental assessment that the BLM Fillmore Field Office is completing, which should be done in time for the BLM's next quarterly lease sale. Citing wildlife concerns, Crandall said additional parcels, near Vernal in the Uinta Basin area and also near Richfield, were pulled this week from the sale.

"The BLM has worked very hard to follow through on this process," she said. "That's the thing: It is a long process."

The process Crandall described took a contentious turn last month, when the National Park Service learned that many parcels bordered two national parks and a national monument.

As of Dec. 2, the BLM in Utah had planned on offering 276,025 acres for oil and gas development and 146,339 acres for geothermal drilling. A protest period ended Dec. 4, and Friday was the BLM's deadline to release its final list of parcels it was pulling from the sale next week in Salt Lake City. The final lease-sale date was the result of a request to postpone the original November date.

The BLM said Dec. 2 that it would defer leasing in the Nine Mile Canyon area below the canyon rim to further review stipulations and mitigation measures for the area. The BLM also pulled from the sale a 2,397-acre tract near Desolation Canyon.

All of the deferred parcels could be offered again in a future sale, which worries critics of the BLM's recently revised resource-management plans that allow for those parcels being offered in the first place.

In recent weeks, the BLM has been under intense pressure from environmental watchdogs, outdoor-industry leaders and the National Park Service to back off from offering parcels that, in some cases, slated land for drilling near homes and even Utah's iconic Delicate Arch. The BLM pulled a 600-acre tract near homes and a golf course in Moab and the parcel near Delicate Arch.