Wednesday, January 09, 2008

New bill aims to protect 36,000 acres of Roan

AP - Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Rep. John Salazar said Tuesday they will introduce a bill to prevent direct drilling on about 36,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land on the Roan Plateau, backing up a key recommendation from Gov. Bill Ritter on gas development on the western Colorado landmark. Read more here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good move, drilling seems to be unstoppable but at least some of the area can be protected. Let the energy industry prove there are enough resources to actually make a difference before they tear up the entire area.

Anonymous said...

Yep protect the top. They can reach the vast majority of resources with directional drilling from available public & leased private lands on the sides. But it costs them more - boohoo.

Now just wait until oil gets to a sustained $100 - $120 a barrel and oil shale becomes an affordable option. If this happens, predictions call for up to 1 million MORE people in the Grand Valley within 25 years, and anywhere from 20,000 - 100,000 or more acres on the Western Slope basically strip mined by big oil. It will irrevocably alter Colorado & the Western Slope.

The oil and gas boom we have going on now is just the tip of the iceberg.