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November 19, 2009 09:45 AM UTC

Rethinking the Roan

  • 19 Comments
  • by: Duke Cox

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

In an editorial published last week,

http://www.gjsentinel.com/opin…

the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel exhibited a rare lucid moment by suggesting the BLM cancel the gas drilling leases issued last year for drilling on the Roan Plateau and refunding the money paid initially by Vantage Energy ( an operative of the Carlyle group, owned in part by the Bush and Bin Laden families ).

When those leases were issued, the BLM justified doing so by claiming that only 200 or so wells would be allowed and that there would be severe restrictions on surface activity. Of course, things have a tendency to change without notice when the O&G boys are involved. After the sale was a done deal, Vantage sold the leases to Bill Barrett Corporation, who prompty announced their intention to drill as many as 3,000 wells, instead of 200.

Even the traditionally conservative Daily Sentinel could see the “bait and switch” hidden in this deal, saying

While advanced technology would allow the company to drill multiple wells from the same well pad, that’s still a massive increase in wells and well pads over what the BLM contemplated when it released its environmental study two years ago.

The Daily Sentinel editorial continues, explaining why protecting the Roan is important

The BLM recognized the unique biology of the Roan Plateau, which has been called one of the four richest areas in Colorado for rare plants and wildlife. Those rare life forms include one of the most genetically pure strains of Colorado River cutthroat trout that exists and the Parachute penstemon, a flowering plant.

In addition, the Roan is home to a spectacular waterfall and important deer and elk herds.

In fact, in a 2002 publication, the BLM referred to the habitat that supports the rare trout populations as “unique and irreplaceable”.

A coalition of environmental and sportsmen’s groups are engaged in litigation to prevent the drilling from going forward and, according to the Sentinel

Barrett’s revelation of the number of wells it might drill has provided powerful new ammunition for the conservationists’ argument that the BLM didn’t adequately evaluate the potential environmental impacts.

The Sentinel sides with the locals on this one and recommends

We hope the court will direct the Department of Interior to cancel the Roan leases, refund the lease money and consider technological changes that would allow the industry to extract the bulk of the natural gas. Environmentalist contend that, using 2007 technology, the vast majority of the gas resources underlying the Roan can be extracted without disturbing the top.

One of the last undisturbed areas in a sea of drilling north of the Colorado River shouldn’t be turned into an industrialized zone. Two hundred wells might not do that, but 3,000 wells would.

Naturally, the O&G spinmeisters immediately respond with more crapola to try to misdirect the public. One such readers’ response to the Sentinels’ editorial says

Those 3000 wells will be drilled from single surface pads which will have 20+/- wells per pad. This will result in approximately 150 surface locations which is below the 200 number the article implied would not be a major problem.

Well…not exactly. Note that the comment says 20+/- wells per pad. The problem with this seemingly reasonable contention is that few pads in the Piceance have 20 wells on them. It can be done, but the average number of wells on a pad around here is closer to 6 or 8. Being generous, an average of 8 wells per pad would mean 375 oversized pads.

Anyone who knows the Roan can tell you that there are very few places where a giant, 20 well pad will fit. Even 10 or 20 well pads on the public part of the plateau would completely change the character of this wild place. It is almost assured that, left to their own devices, the natural gas companies will turn the magnificent Roan Plateau into an industrial park.

Most folks in western Colorado don’t think the Roan should have been leased in the first place (public opposition is well documented), and given the new revelations by Bill Barrett Corp., the deal should be scrapped and the Roan should be left as it is…unique and irreplaceable.  

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19 thoughts on “Rethinking the Roan”

  1. I’m pleasantly surprised by the Sentinel’s stance. It’s so…sane.

    What is involved here legally to call this all off and reimburse Vantage? I can’t imagine the O & G walking away from this quietly. Seems to me it would involve some serious time in court.  

    1. which bought the leases from Vantage.  

      Apparently if you buy leases with no intent to develop them as part of a protest, like McChristopher in Utah, it’s illegal.  If you buy them as a venture capital firm, with no intent to develop but merely flip them in a couple of months for a profit, it’s kosher.

      Environmentalists and sportsmen groups–ten of them that are plaintiffs in the suit–believe they have a strong case–if the court agrees that BLM under Bush failed to take the requisite ‘hard look’ under NEPA (which the filings by BBC announcing its intents to drill 15* the wells contemplated and analyzed, just a few years ago, by BLM certainly suggest) then the (NEPA-derived) management plan authorizing the leases is remanded.  According to standard lease terms it is as if they never existed–leases issued illegally are NOT property rights: they are illegal.  

      If canceled, by the court or by the Sect. of Interior, the purchase price is refunded, and the leases no longer exist.

      Finally, the O&G shill in the comment Duke included in his comment above is wrong (SHOCKING!!!).  

      BLM’s poorly crafted plan also considered multiple wells per pad–the 210 wells contemplated were on fewer pads, I think BLM calculated around 20 per pad actually–thus under the BBC scheme the actual surface location of these monster-sized pads also are multiplied accordingly.

    2. the lawyers will get fat on this one, for sure. As I understand it, the basis for the lawsuit was inadequate study by the BLM. I don’t believe there is any inherent problem in refunding the lease payments, so the court can, in fact, decide to stop the process, but I think only Ken Salazar can revoke the leases.

      Twitty might have more on this.

      1. I believe that the case involves both NEPA and FLPMA claims (Federal Lands Policy & Management Act–BLM’s ‘organic’ act).

        If the plaintiffs prevail, my understanding is the court is likely to remand the management plan–requiring that it be redone, with the leases suspended–or remand and cancel the leases.  A recent court case in New Mexico, in the 10th Circuit binding on the case, at Otero Mesa strengthens the case that BLM failed its obligations.  Companies holding the leases will be ‘made whole’ in the sense that the lease money will be refunded.  

        Of course all those white shoe lawyers retained by BBC will certainly submit their invoices…in 15-minute increments.  Plaintiffs are being represented by the non-profit environmental law firm EarthJustice.

        1. meaning that the leases, if the plantiffs prevailed, were issued illegally and never should have been int he first place.  If effect, it is as if they never legally existed so cannot be revoked.

              1. Its merely more of a semantics issue–revocation implies that they owned the leases, the law is clear that leases issued contrary to law can be rescinded or canceled, by either the Sect. or the court.

                There is no takings claim.  Standard lease terms stipulate that leases can be canceled if they were issued in violation of the law.

                It’s part of the contract–if the court decides they are illegal, then two things could happen: the court could cancel the leases or suspend them pending completion of a new plan.  Completion of a new plan might find that BLM never should have decided to turn one of the state’s biological treasure troves into an industrial zone–with leases canceled/refunded at that point, sometime in the (likely) distant future.  BLM’s new plan could also correct the obviously glaring errors in its original documents and unsuspend the leases with new terms, etc.  

                Or the court could cancel the leases altogether and refund the money Vantage spent on them.  Even if the court only goes for suspension, while the RMP is reworked, Sect. Salazar can decide to cancel the leases.  

                In either case there is no ‘takings’ because no property right was ever legally granted.

  2. While the issue of wells in/on the Roan Plateau is one thing, it is also part of a larger and, in my opinion, much larger issue: a grotesquely unbalanced, disconnected policy regarding not only energy but also the environment and national security in the fast-looming Post Carbon Era.

    IF one asks: “What should we do about declining sources of petroleum?” then one might well look at the Roan as a possible solution.

    The larger question is: How can we organize an orderly shift away from carbon energy as quickly as possible while minimizing economic/social disruption on an unprecedented scale? Roan or not, world petroleum production has long been in the vicinity of 85 million barrels a day, with virtually no margin to spare. [Google research term: “peak oil.”] There is lots of evidence that this is the all-time peak and will go down from there, while at the same time demand (notably from China and India, but also from the United States) continues to rise. The rate at which known sources are depleted has long exceeded the rate of discovery of new reservoirs, or any other sources (which are much more expensive and highly problematical in their own unique ways). Once the balance between production and demand tips to the other side, where demand exceeds maximum possible production, even by as little as 1,000 barrels a day, we can expect prices to soar way beyond anything seen so far ($200, $300, $400?) accompanied by intense political competition [diplomacy if it works, war if necessary] for access to new fields (Arctic, Africa notably), while at the same time, the environmental impact of burning carbon fuel of any kind continues to progress towards its own tipping point with unknown consequences. (Carrying on about peak oil is not meant to deemphasize the impossibility of continuing to burn carbon–oil or coal–in the wake of environmental concerns; this is a pressing issue in and of itself.)

    The overriding great problem here is that as a society, we lack a comprehensive, unified policy that takes all these issues–which above all are social issues, given how our economy and daily lives are organized around carbon energy–into account and plots a rational path forward. Thus, we read right here on ColoradoPols arguments about whether FasTrax will be “profitable,” or whether it should be abandoned. Abandoned in favor of what alternative? More cars burning $10-$20/gal gasoline–when they can find any–for a growing population? [DavidThi‘s proposal last night about plunging ahead immediately with FastTrax on all fronts, possibly with reduced wages temporarily, is worth more discussion in this regard.]

    [Let me emphasize this point: the issue here is NOT that supplies will gradually outpace demand, or that I don’t want no stinkin’ oil well in my bucolic campsite. It is that once the tipping point arrives, or is seen to have arrived, prices will soar immediately, way out of proportion to the actual imbalance. This game is played at the margin–not just for the last, missing gallon. Whether or not wells are sunk on the Roan is a very short-term, and therefore irrelevant, sideshow orchestrated by a few individuals entirely focused on their personal bank accounts.]

    No argument about canceling oil leases can be taken seriously unless the advocate also, in the same breadth, proposes an alternative. 9One side arguments can be made, all right, but they will have trouble being taken seriously.) In this case, the only feasible, very short-term, alternative (that I can see) is to reduce demand (and I put mass transit in that category), quickly and dramatically (next 5 years, not 25), while at the same time plunging head with the sense of urgency present on December 8, 1941, with renewable, green sources of power, all at the same time and all with a measure of uncertainty about the total practicality of any one measure. This is World War III, and it’s already started! (see OPEC embargo, 1978.)

    We live in at the end of the Era of Carbon Energy. That era is coming to an end, whether we want it to or not. The facts are there; denying them is simply the Ostrich Opposition Policy–Silliness (OOPS) personified. The issue is not producing more petroleum; Roan or not, Alberta oily sand or not–the tipping point is looming, and focusing on some of the more extreme oil production “solutions” is a disservice because it distracts from meaningful solutions. The issue is how to manage the transition to the post-petroleum era while we still can, before utter economic chaos, and accompanying social chaos, ensues.

    Oil producers have nothing useful to contribute to this discussion.

    Thus endeth the reading.

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