In a case that could set a precedent for how
citizen-proposed wilderness in Colorado is managed, an oil company
is suing the Bureau of Land Management for pulling certain parcels
from a routine oil and gas lease sale.
The
Texas-based Marathon Oil company says the lands do not lie in
official wilderness study areas and should be open to leasing. But
after protests from the Colorado Environmental Coalition, the BLM
denied Marathon’s request for 10 leases in the Vermillion Basin
area in the northwest corner of the state. That 88,000-acre area is
part of 300,000 acres that have been informally protected pending
approval of a final state bill.
“What (the BLM)
is saying is that if the CEC has drawn a line around an area and
says don’t lease it, we won’t lease it,” says Marathon attorney
Craig Carver. “That’s not what the law says you’re supposed to do.”
Environmentalists say the agency has the
authority to decide not to lease some lands. “Once you go and put
that drill pad in, it’s not going to be wilderness anymore,” says
Robert Wiygul, an attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.
It is intervening in the suit on behalf of the CEC and The
Wilderness Society.
Wiygul notes that the agency
has been inconsistent in its protection of citizen-proposed
wilderness lands, offering some lands for lease in the past (HCN,
5/27/96). “If Marathon wins this case, it will set a very
significant precedent, not just for Colorado but for Utah as well.”
* Sarah Dry
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Marathon Oil sues to get into roadless area.
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