Can drilling and recreation coexist in Moab, Utah?

Neal Clark has been watching his feet a lot this fall day. The young environmental lawyer chose flipflops for this tour of the Utah desert with the blithe self-assurance of someone comfortable outdoors. Remarkably, he’s stumbled into thorns only once. Now, he cautiously threads a gap between banks of cryptobiotic crust. The castle-like colonies of microorganisms anchor the thin topsoil; no conscientious environmentalist would crush them. But Clark pauses: Just ahead, an oil rig towers on a patch of earth scraped bare to accommodate trucks and equipment. “There’s something ironic about tiptoeing around crust next to something like this,” he says wryly.

That incongruity stretches far beyond this spot. Clark, who works for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is pointing out Bureau of Land Management parcels that are being developed for oil and gas near Canyonlands National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park and some of the other scenic areas that have made nearby Moab an outdoor recreation mecca.

Fidelity Exploration & Production Company has 31 oil wells here, most drilled in recent years. Though the National Park Service and BLM credit Fidelity with keeping its facilities as low-impact as possible, many feel the development illustrates why the BLM should plan much more carefully where and how drilling is allowed. “This is one of the most spectacular places on the planet,” Clark argues. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to allow oil companies to disturb this landscape.”

Hoping to strike a better balance, in August, the BLM released a draft “master leasing plan” for nearly 800,000 federal acres here that would significantly curtail future development near national parks, trails and other sensitive sites.

Read full story…

 

The following are paid links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.