GarCo: Don’t cancel leases on Thompson
The commissioners’ action Monday drew objections from groups who are promoting protection of Thompson Divide. They say the position is inconsistent with the county’s past support for finding a way to protect the area from oil and gas development.
But Commissioner Tom Jankovsky said the stance by the county is in keeping with its past calls to explore options for protecting Thompson Divide in a way that respects leaseholders’ property rights.
The BLM is reviewing White River National Forest leases stretching from the De Beque area to the Thompson Divide area southwest of Glenwood Springs due to a failure to adopt Forest Service environmental analysis or do its own before issuing the leases. The BLM has issued a draft EIS considering a range of alternatives from leaving the leases unchanged to canceling all of them. Its proposed action to cancel 18 Thompson Divide leases and parts of seven more would align with the Forest Service’s decision to close the White River National Forest part of the Thompson Divide to future leasing under a new oil and gas plan.
Garfield commissioners on Monday endorsed an alternative that would keep all 65 leases, but modify the stipulations on eight to address a failure to include stipulations that should have applied based on a 1993 White River forest oil and gas plan.
Zane Kessler, executive director of the Thompson Divide Coalition, told commissioners that the position they were taking Monday is “very inconsistent” with the comments the county provided the BLM in 2014. The county said then that if the BLM is mandated to undertake a new environmental impact statement on the 65 leases, it should include a distinct alternative recognizing the environmental, socioeconomic, community-preference and other differences between the leases in the undeveloped Thompson Divide area and other leases near existing gas development and infrastructure. The county’s letter last year also pointed to its measure passed several years ago in support of a resolution to the dispute over drilling in the Thompson Divide.
Commissioners continue to hope for federal lease swap legislation or some other means of resolving the matter, but Jankovsky said canceling leases improperly infringes on property rights. Commissioner Mike Samson agreed with him, while Commissioner John Martin voted against the county taking their position. He’s previously personally endorsed the BLM’s proposed action, in a letter also signed by some other Roaring Fork Valley elected officials.
Thompson Divide proponents suggested Monday that commissioners need not endorse any specific BLM alternative. But David Ludlam of the West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association praised the county for supporting an alternative that he called a “rejection of retroactively canceling or harming natural gas leases rights.”
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