BLM settlement prompts new air analysis, online drilling updates

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) settled a lawsuit with environmental groups on Monday, agreeing to conduct new analysis of air pollution impacts from oil and gas drilling on public land in Garfield County and the surrounding area. The agency also agreed to establish an Internet tracking system for drilling permits evaluated by the Colorado River Valley Field Office, which includes Garfield County, the Roaring Fork Valley and the Thompson Divide area. Environmental groups had specifically challenged 34 projects in Garfield County, with permits granted to various gas companies between 2008 and 2010. New permits for the drilling areas will use new analysis of air quality impacts. The BLM stopped relying on the Roan analysis in late 2011, when they began using a new air quality model. The settlement agreement states the agency can no longer rely on the old Roan air work for the 34 projects at issue. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in June 2011 by Wilderness Workshop, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club. Those groups agreed, in the settlement, no longer to “seek to prevent the drilling, construction and/or operation of wells or of any equipment or facilities associated with any wells” based on deficient BLM air quality review...more