A Federal judge in Colorado has ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to renew negotiations with environmental groups who filed suit to stop the government from opening hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Colorado to oil and gas exploration.
U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock recently ruled in a lawsuit brought against the BLM by the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Workshop, Western Colorado Congress and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The groups tried to block the BLM’s move to open some of its 2.9 million acres to drilling in Eagle, Garfield, Mesa, Pitkin and Routt counties of western Colorado.
The groups accused the BLM of improperly conducting an Environmental Impact State before deciding to open more than 600,000 acres of the Federal mineral estate open to fluid mineral leasing.
Judge Babcock ruled against the BLM for violating the National Environmental Policy Act, saying it did not take a hard look at the indirect effects resulting form the combustion of oil and gas in the planning area under the proposed targeted land.
But he ruled against some of the challenges made by the environmental groups including their contention the BLM failed to take a hard look at the impact of methane emissions. He also found that the BLM had taken a “sufficiently hard look of human health impacts of oil and gas.”
But in the end, the judge found the BLM failed to consider reasonable alternatives to oil and gas leasing and development. He ordered all sides to meet and “attempt in good faith to reach agreement as to remedies.”
The judge said if they can’t reach an agreement, he’ll consider more arguments before making a final ruling.