Over the past few years many of you have been there time and again, helping to protect the Redrock Wilderness of Utah.
Conoco wants to turn this wilderness into an oilfield...
As many of you know, I've been fortunate to have toured much of this wild canyon country. Let's not just hope that you or your children will be able to see this land... as Ed Abbey said,
"Sentiment without action is the ruination of the soul."
Dennis Schvejda
dschvejda@igc.apc.org
Conservation Chair NJ Chapter Sierra Club
The following is from our Utah friends...
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The latest news:
(1) Conoco to Federal Government: "Give us the keys, we wanna drill"
(2) How to contact Conoco
(3) Press coverage
(4) Doesn't monument designation protect the area from development?
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(1) Believe it or not, they're serious.
On February 11, Conoco Inc. held a press conference to announce it had filed permits to drill two oil wells within the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (one on BLM and one on Utah State land). Conoco is clearly very serious: the press conference included a slick video which was distributed to the TV news, a slew of Conoco employees, and attractive press packets, and Conoco says it already expended an estimated 2 million dollars to develop their leases in the area..
Conoco holds leases for 140,000 acres of federal and state land in the monument, a large amount of which overlaps with congressionally proposed wilderness. According to Conoco "multiple prospects, each capable of holding 100 million barrels or more of oil, could be in the region which accompanies the monument and its adjoining areas." Further, "These reserves could be as high as 4 billion barrels, and successful development of such giant fields would have a positive impact on our country's oil and gas needs".
Conoco has not expended all this effort to drill 1 or 2 wells. If the corporation finds oil, expect an oil field with pipelines, power lines, storage tanks, new roads, pump jacks, waste pits. The existing network of roads to the area will be upgraded to all-weather high standard roads to allow heavy semi tanker traffic to drain storage tanks when the weather conditions are bad. It would turn the National Monument into a National Sacrifice Area. Wilderness will be lost.
Imagine that. We're not even to the other side of winter yet and already the knives are out for the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument. Roads. Pipelines. Oil rigs. Sludge ponds on slickrock. Imagine.
Take a few minutes right now: Call them and give them an earful. Then call or email your friends who have been with you in canyon country (in body or in spirit) and tell them what's going on. Please also forward this alert to any lists you might have posting privileges on.
Folks, we can stop this thing dead in the water if enough of us take five minutes to (a) do something ourselves and (b) get others to join us.
* The most effective way to express your displeasure to them is to call their headquarters in Houston at (281) 293-1000. It will probably cost between 50 cents and a dollar. Early reports indicate that a real person will answer the phone. Tell her or him that you've heard that Conoco is planning to put oil wells in the new National Monument and that you think this is a lousy idea. They may ask you where you heard this from. If you read about it in the Washington Post or Salt Lake Tribune (see below), then tell them that's how you heard about it. If it suits your personality, demand to speak with Conoco CEO Archie Dunham. You might also consider telling them that you plan to boycott Conoco and cut up you credit card if they don't back off from their drilling plans.
* If you would prefer not make a long distance call, you can call Conoco's toll-free customer service number, (800) 624-6440. Ask them to relay you message to the appropriate people. If you get a recording, just leave a message.
* Conoco has a comments form on the web. It's at
<http://www.conoco.com/writeus/feedback.html>
We don't know how often they check the comments they receive here, nor do we know whether their comments readers will reliably relay the message to the people in charge of the drilling project. So a phone call is definitely preferred.
* They also have an email address:
Again, we don't know whether email messages will reach the right people, so it's better to make a phone call. (But if you've already called, or have no plans to, then an email message certainly doesn't hurt.)
* Last, but not least, you can send them a good, old-fashioned letter:
Conoco Inc.
600 North Dairy Ashford
Houston TX, 77079
* Please also contact Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt at (202) 208-7351 and tell him we expect DOI to honor the proclamation creating the new monument by telling Conoco its a National Monument, not a national sacrifice area.
Today's editions of the Washington Post and the Salt Lake Tribune have articles on Conoco's drilling plans:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-02/12/123L-021297-idx.html
http://www.sltrib.com/021297/nation_w/1766.htm
(4) Doesn't monument designation protect the area from development?
The Monument proclamation withdrew the land from future oil and gas leasing, or staking of mining claims. By prohibiting future leasing and claim staking, the President's proclamation made clear that these types of uses were inconsistent with protecting values such as biological processes, archeology, paleontology for which the Monument was established. The proclamation does protect valid existing rights, and Conoco claims it has valid existing rights to drill. They're wrong.
BLM cannot give away development rights without first conducting environmental studies under the National Environmental Policy Act and allowing public involvement. Conoco's leases were issued without sufficient NEPA/public comment, and hence BLM could not have legally granted away development rights. In fact, when BLM issues leases, it will explain it need not conduct NEPA, because the leases are merely a paper transaction, and that no decision was made that would affect the environment (which would trigger NEPA). The agency can't tell us now that actually it made a decision to allow development after all when it issued the leases years ago.
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