BLM DROPS PROTESTED OIL AND GAS LEASES FROM AUGUST SALE

Due to protests filed by a coalition of conservation groups, comprised of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and the Grand Canyon Trust, and concerns of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has withdrawn several controversial lease parcels from their August oil and gas lease sale. 

The parcels at the heart of the controversy are just east of the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park in the Hatch Point and Lockhart Basin areas.  The Park Service asked the BLM to remove these parcels from the auction stating that "these parcels contribute to the exceptional landscape as viewed from the rims
on BLM and as viewed from scenic overlooks within Canyonlands National Park," said Anthony Schetzsle, superintendent for the Southeast Group of the National Park Service. 

The BLM also dropped several other protested parcels from their August lease sale, citing a backlog of unresolved protests.  The coalition of conservation groups filed their protest over a fraction of the parcels up for bid at the August 16 lease sale, including parcels located in the heart of Utah's redrock country, along the south slope of Utah's rugged and remote Book Cliffs and in the western basin and range mountains.

"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.  The White Rim [a popular mountain biking trail in Canyonlands National Park] is unique in the world.  If we compromise this backcountry experience by destroying the viewshed with manmade objects, we'll have killed the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg," said Ashley Kornblat, president of Western Spirit Cycling (a Moab, Utah based outfitter) and a member of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman's Outdoor Recreation Economic Ecosystem Task Force.

Like most Western states, Utah has a surplus of BLM lands that have been leased for oil and gas development, but are not in production, as well as a surplus of approved applications for permit to drill.  According to BLM figures, at the end of fiscal year 2004, roughly 3.3 million acres of Utah BLM lands were leased, but only 916,106 were in production.  Likewise, according to Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining (UDOGM) statistics,
between January 2001 and July 2005, UDOGM has approved 4297 permits to drill oil and gas wells, but in this same period only 2637 wells had been drilled, leaving a surplus of 1660 unused drill permits.