The BLM has backed down on issuing oil and gas leases near Arches National Park, Dinosaur National Monument and Canyonlands National Park, all in Utah.
Some of those parcels were within a miles and a quarter of Arches' iconic Delicate Arch.
That said, despite listening to some National Park Service protests, the BLM is still leaving in place a number of drilling leases that are on sites readily visible (and audible) from inside Arches.
Showing posts with label Dinosaur National Monument. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dinosaur National Monument. Show all posts
November 26, 2008
November 14, 2008
EPA gets internal hand-slapping on Utah coal plant
Indian tribes caught in middle
An Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel has blocked the EPA from issuing an approval permit for a Utah coal-fired electric power plant.
The panel said EPA’s Denver office failed to justify its approving the plant without stringent carbon-dioxide controls. Is the change in presidential administration already starting to produce some environmental backbones, even as EPA continues to twiddle its thumbs on specific regulations to control carbon dioxide as a pollutant, per Supreme Court ruling?
That’s the take of David Bookbinder, a lawyer representing the Sierra Club in its challenge to the Bonanza plant, which would have been built on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in eastern Utah. The “usual suspects,” including American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Manufacturers, wanted EPA to steam full speed ahead.
That said, the ruling will also keep particulate pollutants from the plant from wafting into Dinosaur National Monument and the High Uintahs Wilderness area.
At the same time, it will cost Ute Indians on the reservation whatever construction and operations jobs they could have gotten.
An Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel has blocked the EPA from issuing an approval permit for a Utah coal-fired electric power plant.
The panel said EPA’s Denver office failed to justify its approving the plant without stringent carbon-dioxide controls. Is the change in presidential administration already starting to produce some environmental backbones, even as EPA continues to twiddle its thumbs on specific regulations to control carbon dioxide as a pollutant, per Supreme Court ruling?
That’s the take of David Bookbinder, a lawyer representing the Sierra Club in its challenge to the Bonanza plant, which would have been built on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in eastern Utah. The “usual suspects,” including American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Manufacturers, wanted EPA to steam full speed ahead.
That said, the ruling will also keep particulate pollutants from the plant from wafting into Dinosaur National Monument and the High Uintahs Wilderness area.
At the same time, it will cost Ute Indians on the reservation whatever construction and operations jobs they could have gotten.
August 17, 2008
Hiking Dinosaur National Park Monument and avoiding eyesores
Well, it would be a national park, not “just” a national monument, if Bob Waite had his way. Waite, who led the charge for the creation of Great Basin NP in eastern Nevada (tentatively on my to-visit list next year), has been crusading for more than 25 years for Dinosaur to get upgraded from NM to NP. He’s still doing it, from an assisted-living center.
Second, it looks like I got here just in time to avoid seeing this eyesore on BLM land just a mile west of the monument boundary, the latest courtesy of the Bush-Cheney Bureau of Hydrocarbon Management.
Fortunately, the approval process for the exploratory drilling is not done yet, and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is still fighting the whole process, even if, per the BLM, the well site won’t be visible from Dinosaur’s most pristine viewing areas:
We’ve crossed too many Rubicons in the last 7.5 years, and the BLM, in its refusal to offer any protection to wilderness study areas, is guilty as hell of leading the marches.
Second, it looks like I got here just in time to avoid seeing this eyesore on BLM land just a mile west of the monument boundary, the latest courtesy of the Bush-Cheney Bureau of Hydrocarbon Management.
Fortunately, the approval process for the exploratory drilling is not done yet, and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is still fighting the whole process, even if, per the BLM, the well site won’t be visible from Dinosaur’s most pristine viewing areas:
(I)t’s like crossing the Rubicon,” said Scott Braden, SUWA’s field advocate. “It’s a small step that opens the door to expanded commercial drilling on the monument boundary should the well prove up.”
We’ve crossed too many Rubicons in the last 7.5 years, and the BLM, in its refusal to offer any protection to wilderness study areas, is guilty as hell of leading the marches.
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