South Park drilling Recently the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) held a public meeting in Fairplay regarding exploratory drilling by El Paso Exploration and Production in James Mark Jones State Wildlife Area (SWA). The SWA, located on the west end of Reinecker Ridge, and all of South Park are rich in wildlife. Driving through one often sees elk, mule deer and pronghorn. Bald eagles and mountain plover as well as aquatic wildlife and world-class trout fisheries are also there. South Park is also the headwaters for the South Platte River that provides more than 1.5 million people in mountain communities and the Denver metro area with clean drinking water. Check the South Park Coalition web page for more information. The clean energy economy has been an unstinting success for Colorado. Over 17,000 renewable energy and energy research jobs exist in Colorado today, the fourth-highest concentration in the nation. More than $600 million in cleantech investments of venture capital have been made since 1999. And at the moment when President Obama is championing aggressive renewable energy goals, all eyes are on Colorado’s cutting-edge 30% standard. As economic development leader Tom Clark put it, “clean technology was like a safety net that kept our economy from falling into the abyss.”
Colorado Environmental Coalition works on behalf of all of us on energy policies.
Oil and Gas Leases and Wells Center for Native Ecosystems' map shows the extent of oil and gas development across the state. Western and northeastern Colorado are most affected, but there is active and proposed exploration in South Park. The rich wildlife habitat and headwaters of the South Platte River, as well as local water wells, could be irreparably harmed should drilling go forward.
Click on the map to view or download a high resolution maps (4 MB)
Click on the map to view or download a high resolution map (1 MB PDF)
New Protections for Wilderness Quality Lands In the last days of 2010, Secretary of Interior Salazar issued an administrative order ending a seven-year Bush era policy, which severely limited protection of wilderness quality Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.
Salazar’s order confirms that protection of wilderness characteristics on BLM lands is a high priority and is integral to the agency's multi-use mission.
The Bush era policy prevented the BLM from recommending new lands as wilderness and from managing to protect potential wilderness lands. Salazar's order goes a great distance toward restoring balance to management of BLM lands by ending the "No More Wilderness Policy." The order is 95% good, but, as with any new policy, a few concerns linger and there is room for improvement.
Here are the highlights and a few potential pitfalls of Salazar’s Order.
Pros of the new Order: • Creates a new BLM "Wild Lands" designation where protection of wilderness characteristics is a high priority • Requires BLM to inventory lands with wilderness character and use that inventory in land management decisions • Directs BLM to recommend Congressional designation of wilderness lands Potential cons of new Order: • Fails to reaffirm BLM's authority to designate Wilderness Study Areas • Does not require that Wild Lands with wilderness characteristics be closed to harmful activities like oil and gas development, OHV use, etc.
Wild Connections 2309 N. Logan Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80907 info@wildconnections.org 719-686-5905
