For many, the Red Rock wilderness of southeast Utah is the greatest place on earth. Fantastically beautiful sculpted sandstone of these red rock deserts have inspired hundreds of writers and artists. Visitors flock from across the globe to see what can be found no where else on earth. People are captivated by the aesthetic qualities of canyon country, including the striking clear skies, sprawling vistas, profound natural quiet, geological marvels, and its wild and primitive feel.
This inspirational landscape is poor in extractable assets, but rich in natural beauty and living vibrancy. Although some places have been exploited for oil and uranium exploration and development, many areas remain essentially the same as they were before the area was settled. With wild and undeveloped landscapes disappearing rapidly across the planet, it is no wonder that more than 100 conservation groups nationwide consider preservation of the wild, primitive, undeveloped character and biological integrity of the Colorado Plateau to be one of their primary goals.
Unfortunately, the threats to this world-famous landscape are great and are growing. Oil and gas exploration and development is escalating, despite extremely marginal return in areas outside of the established fields. Such development leaves behind polluted drill pads, toxic sludge pits, and a large and unwieldy system of roads that are oftentimes bulldozed up the sides of steep canyons and blasted through ancient walls of rock -- permanently scarring this world-class scenery. Off-road vehicle use is causing loss of natural quiet, soil and crusts, damage to rare and biologically valuable desert streams and springs, dust storms, and significant conflicts with other users. Domestic livestock grazing in this desert ecosystem is devastating to the native vegetation and drastically reduces forage for the wildlife that call this landscape home.
The BLM must acknowledge that the canyons, mesas, rivers and dunes of southeastern Utah are a precious resource and that in most other states these lands would have already been preserved as National Parks or some other protective designation. These lands should not be managed as just another place for oil drilling, unmitigated livestock grazing and ORV mayhem. Southeast Utah's landscapes are unique in the world and worthy of protection, rather than continued exploitation.
Economically, it makes good sense to protect the scenic and recreational resources near our communities. Studies show that communities with protected wilderness show economic resilience and enjoy the prized slow, steady growth needed for community stability. Well planned, low-impact recreation means high return on minimal investment, low upkeep costs (both financially and for the land) and sustained quality of visitor experience and quality of life for residents. This plan, by sustaining the beautiful, yet fragile, ecosystems of Southeastern Utah's deserts, will also sustain the communities of Southeastern Utah, and break the boom/bust cycles of extraction-based towns such as Moab and Monticello. Clean, uncrowded, beautiful, biologically intact landscapes are becoming increasingly rare worldwide, meaning even greater value in those places still relatively unscathed, such as SE Utah. The most obvious asset of this area is its inspiring and superlative scenic features. The aim of this proposal is to care for the goose that is laying the golden eggs by creating a balanced, sustainable recreation plan and by restricting extractive developments to proven areas.
Twenty years ago BLM planners failed to anticipate the ORV invasion and the exponential growth in overall recreation on public lands in southeastern Utah. 4x4 ATV's and mountain bikes had barely been invented when the current plans were drafted in the mid-1980's. Just as significantly, BLM failed to account for the value that American's put on wilderness and undeveloped places. As a result we've been laboring under woefully inadequate BLM management plans for the last several years. These mistakes must not be repeated. BLM must design the new management plans, and especially the transportation and energy components, so that the plans continue to make sense 20 years into the future, even after visitation levels have doubled or tripled, and the public's desire for undeveloped places of respite have grown even stronger.
The current road and trail network in SE Utah is the unplanned result of historical seismic and mineral exploration. This haphazard spider web of routes makes no sense whatsoever as a reasonable recreational transportation plan.
A sensible, evenhanded transportation plan should based on the following principles:
The proposed transportation plan is shown on these maps. For roughly half of BLM lands, explicit designations are proposed. For the remaining half, it is left to the BLM to designate a transportation system according to the above principles.
The proposed transportation plan moves toward a more balanced spectrum of recreational opportunities, as is shown on this page.
The map depicts routes open for general, recreational use. Roads that are needed only for occasional access to spring developments, gas wells, etc., would be gated and open for administrative use only. This approach is used in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Management Plan.
(These maps is currently in draft form. Suggestions for modifications from all interested members of the public are welcome.)
Oil and gas exploration and development is one of the major causes of environmental destruction in SE Utah. 50,000 pound seismic thumper "buggies" crush fragile cryptobiotic soil crusts. Centuries-old blackbrush is pulverized and killed, and old-growth pinyon-juniper stands are criss-crossed by the giant trucks leaving paths of flattened trees in their wake. New roads are bulldozed and dynamited in order to bring in large drilling equipment, and drill pads turn formerly pristine areas into outback industrial zones.
This ugly sacrifice of our few remaining wild areas might be justifiable if it resulted in significant quantities of energy, but in fact the opposite is true. According to USGS and Department of Energy studies, 95% of Utah's oil and gas production comes from a few developed fields. (See attached O&G maps.) Geologists agree that there is no significant chance of an energy bonanza outside of these already developed areas. If every remaining undeveloped area in Utah were filled with drill pads, it would extend our national oil supply by about 3 weeks and our natural gas supply by less than 5 months. This is clearly not a significant contribution to our national energy needs. Yet the BLM continues to encourage exploration and development in these extremely marginal areas. No sane person would consider this a balanced policy.
In short, BLM's current O&G policy sacrifices world-class scenery, recreation and wilderness in order to develop third-rate oil and gas deposits.
The proposed oil and gas policy is quite simple: oil and gas development could continue in and near productive areas such as the eastern Book Cliffs and Lisbon Valley. Oil and gas leasing, exploration and development will not be allowed in areas where recreational, scenic, wilderness and/or wildlife values outweigh marginal oil and gas resources (see attached Oil and Gas map). (See this map for details.)
Oil and gas development would be phased out in the eastern Canyonlands Basin, Labyrinth/Goldbar/Island in the Sky area, Dome Plateau, and Fisher Valley. These areas have only a few successful wells between them, despite numerous dry holes and destructive exploration projects. Existing leases can simply expire without incident and not be reissued. Alternatively, should the leaseholder want to drill on an existing lease in these areas, the BLM must consider suspending leases in sensitive areas pending further consideration of the area's resource values.