Colorado News Connection

December 31, 2009

How Many Gas Wells are ‘Too Many?’

Lawsuit to Protect HD Mountains Inches Forward

Chris Thomas

DENVER – The future of some of southwestern Colorado’s most rugged terrain will be decided in the new year. On Dec. 30, attorneys for oil and gas developers, conservation groups and federal agencies met in a Denver courtroom to continue a tug-of-war over whether to allow about 140 gas wells to be drilled in the HD Mountains east of Durango.

Five of the conservation groups, including the San Juan Citizens Alliance and The Wilderness Society, are being represented by Earthjustice in the lawsuit, filed in 2008. It asks U.S. District Court Justice Richard Matsch to stop any new drilling while he considers their request to overturn Forest Service approval of the wells.

At the heart of the controversy, says Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, are planning documents that outlined protections for the area — protections that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service now say were not set in stone.

“The Forest Service has promised the public in its forest planning documents that it would protect the HD Mountains and preserve the wildlife habitat that’s there for elk and deer and other species that Coloradans really cherish. It disregarded those commitments when it approved this project.”

The San Juan Basin is already home to tens of thousands of oil and gas wells, according to Freeman. He calls the Forest Service stand on this project “a shell game.”

“When they approved the project, they acknowledged that it was inconsistent with a lot of the commitments they made to protect the HD Mountains. But they said that they would just address those violations and correct them, when they approve individual wells to implement the project.”

Freeman says the area’s combination of rugged terrain and low elevation makes it good wildlife habitat, and it is also part of a larger watershed used by farms and ranches for irrigation. About 20 of the wells are already underway.

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