SUWA, energy company reach historic deal on drilling near Nine Mile
The Salt Lake Tribune – In a unprecedented pact, a major energy company and its longtime environmental nemesis have agreed on a plan to drill for natural gas on eastern Utah’s West Tavaputs Plateau near relic-rich Nine Mile Canyon — and they did so without a lawsuit.
The compromise by Bill Barrett Corp. and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance will significantly reduce the project’s environmental impact while still allowing drillers to capture much of the natural-gas resources they sought.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management signed off on the deal in its final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the West Tavaputs Natural Gas Full Field Development Plan.
Under the final EIS, Barrett and other operators plan to drill 626 wells from 120 pads, shaving the initial proposal by 181 wells and 418 pads. It also reduces surface impacts from 3,656 acres to 1,603 acres, according to the BLM.
“This is the purest win-win we could come up with,” said Barrett Senior Vice President Duane Zavadil. “It’s good business, provides certainty and predictability, and we advance the conservation goals that are in everyone’s interest.”
SUWA attorney and energy-program director Stephen Bloch said the agreement marks a “hard-fought compromise” negotiated over many months that will protect federal Wilderness Study Areas as well as additional lands with wilderness qualities near picturesque Desolation Canyon.
“We asked ourselves if there was a way outside of litigation to arrive at a compromise to protect this remarkable landscape … and for Bill Barrett to develop natural gas in this region,” Bloch said. “This is a very positive thing for this world-class landscape.”
The unusual negotiations between Barrett and SUWA, which headed up a coalition of conservation organizations in the talks, were separate from January’s “programmatic” agreement between the BLM and Barrett.
The January accord was reached in cooperation with Carbon, Duchesne and Uintah counties, as well as cultural-preservation advocates, environmental organizations and others to protect the rugged and scenic areas from Nine Mile Canyon to Desolation Canyon along the Green River.
The final EIS is subject to a 30-day appeal to the Interior Department’s Board of Land Appeals.
The atmosphere for compromise did not exist before the November 2008 election of President Barack Obama, according to Bloch and others.
The draft EIS, released in February 2008, drew the ire of environmentalists as well as activists seeking to protect the wealth of archaeological sites in and around Nine Mile Canyon.
The document indicated 20 drill sites within Wilderness Study Areas and 200 such sites on areas with wilderness characteristics.
“We were concerned,” Bloch said, “about the impact that level of development would have on the cultural resources [pictographs, petroglyphs and some 10,000 archaeological sites] and environment.”
In the final EIS, those numbers have been reduced to zero in wilderness study lands and six on areas with wilderness characteristics.
Barrett will access gas deposits under those sensitive areas by horizontal drilling from other drill pads.
After Obama’s election, the BLM and Utah brought together disparate groups, including Barrett and SUWA, to seek ways to protect the area.
Barrett and SUWA had an “acrimonious” relationship until those talks began, Bloch said. “But that forced SUWA and Barrett to have this face-to-face interaction.”
Both sides decided to make use of the interaction. Barrett representatives, seeing that the political climate had changed, listened to various interests, Zavadil said.
“It’s a fundamentally different approach,” he added. “We end up at the same place but avoid the cost and time of litigation.”
While the SUWA-Barrett pact doesn’t deal directly with issues surrounding the protection of rock art in Nine Mile Canyon, Zavadil said the agreement would reduce, to some extent, heavy truck traffic on that road. Dust from those rigs — and its impact of the rock art — is a significant issue.
Pam Miller, president of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, said Thursday afternoon she had not yet had a chance to digest the final EIS or the agreement between SUWA and Barrett. She noted, however, that the January agreement between the BLM and Barrett did provide tools to protect Nine Mile Canyon.
“We are very hopeful,” she said. “But we still have concerns. We will always be watching. We hope what we see is good.”
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar applauded Barrett and SUWA as well as the EIS on Thursday. “It improves protections for air, land, water and cultural resources,” he said in a statement, “while reducing potential conflicts that can lead to costly and time-consuming litigation.”
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert also lauded the pact. “Energy production and environmental stewardship can coexist, and this agreement provides a model under which it can happen.”
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