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In spite of the Rocky’s support, hyperventilating county commissioners with dollar signs in their eyes are hardly the logical people to decide whether or not it is appropriate to drill atop the Roan Plateau or in the Vermillion Basin (“Let’s develop the Roan responsibly,” Aug. 29). Neither are those in the extractive industries (oil, gas, timber and mining) who salivate at the prospect of pillaging public land for corporate profit. It’s about the money, baby!
Survey after survey has shown that a large majority of the public wants these kind of places protected from this sort of exploitation.
When the decisions to drill or not are made, we’ll see whose side the decision-makers are on, and whose interests they support. We already know where the Bureau of Land Management stands with the anti-environmental administration prodding them.

P. Riley, Brighton

READER COMMENTS

If large majorities of people wanted prayer in schools and religious schools to be the only ones would that make as much sense as this letter?

Yes. Both are wrong. Experts know how to drill with minimal damage taking care to study and test and examine before drilling begins. The result is a supply of energy that will give us a financial benefit as a state which, being as I don't trust any politician with cash, is not something I like but something we may need, all with minimal temporary damage and even less permanent effects.
Perhaps P. Riley, and all those who swoon at the thought of actually using a natural resource, wish to pay the extra monies the tax revenues would supply. Perhaps those WITHOUT the religious experience Governor Ritter babbles about could offer a reasoned and logical reason for the drilling. Matter of fact I think they already did. If we wait and the need becomes great the cost will be greater in many areas and the caution may be discarded to serve that need.

Better for us all if we proceed with the plan we spent all those years making. Let those with technical expertise explain it to Ritter. This time check the oxygen supply in the copter.

follow the money and be sure that the dems love money so you could be sold out by your save the earth feel good administration.

we have heard for years how the Republicans are against clean water clean air and anti enviornment, so can you explain why will still have clean air and clean water? do you actually think, notice I didnt say believe because I am sure you 'beleive', that any human alive would want dirty water and dirty air?

"It’s about the money, baby!"

Good old American free-market capitalism. Nothing happens until somebody figures out a way to make a buck!! If it weren't for profit motives, your newspaper wouldn't get printed, it wouldn't get delivered, you wouldn't own a PC, you wouldn't have electricity or a car and you would would be sitting in some cold and damp cave--naked, hungry, uemmployed and in the dark.

Yeah baby!

7:19

An old bumper sticker from Colorado School of Mines circa 1970:

"Ban Mining! Let the Ba$tard$ Freeze in the Dark."

I think I'll print a batch with a word change for modernization. How about Greenies?

let's just keep buyoung our oil from those who are our enemies, and continue to be dependant on others for the majority of our energy needs.
Then we'll all cry about global warming and the damage we are doing to the earth because government red tape and greenies not wanting nuclear energy.

Three things drive me nuts about Ritter's, Salazar's and Udall's position on the Roan Plateau.

1) These politicians maintain that America should be making serious strides to become energy independent. I've heard them say this before. This means pushing renewable energy options, but also means developing our non-renewable resources in a responsible manner. So how, with a straight face, can you advocate these things and still set aside 8.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under Roan Plateau? By all accounts, even The Wilderness Society's, there is a boat-load of gas under that plateau. Some geologists estimate that 4% of America's total natural gas reserves lie under that small area. It's quite amazing, actually. So how can you stand up in front of the American public and tell us you want to use our natural resources but don't want to drill the top of the Roan? If you are serious about providing some of our energy needs from our own lands, why are you advocating putting aside possibly the largest gas pocket in the country? Politicians and environmentalists must admit the trade off.

2) I am afraid these folks need a quick lesson in geology and gas operations. These guys have maintained that by only allowing directional drilling from the edge of the plateau and private lands on that that this will allow the Roan's gas to be tapped. Um, gentlemen, the BLM portion of the top of the plateau is approximately a square 6 miles east to west by 6 miles north to south. Current directional drilling technologies only reach 1/4 mile laterally, especially at the shallow depths of the Roan. Given those facts, can you please tell me how it is possible to tap even a small fraction of Roan's gas? You need to start looking at the facts guys, instead of taking spoon-fed misinformation from the national and regional environmental organizations. Again, admit that by allowing no surface occupancy on top of the plateau, much of the gas will not be able to be developed, at least with current technology.

3) The sensationalistic fear-mongering is sickening. PLEASE, PLEASE refrain from the scare tactics of the enviro groups. Nothing makes me more frustrated than completely unfounded assertions in your letter that the Roan will be "sacrificed," "unrecognizable," and "damaged." Bold-faced lies like that make me want to see you loose in this endeavor of yours. Sorry to use such strong words, but how can a 35,000 acre area be unrecognizable from 350 acres of disturbance at any one time? The facts make your assertions laughable. You and your enviro spin doctors pretend like the BLM compromise is a rape and ruin scenario, when the document paints quite a different picture. The 1% disturbance limitation is no joke, no matter how hard you try to punch loop holes in it.

As I stated in my first post, I would love to see the Roan Plateau put off limits to development. But instead of resorting to lies and fear-mongering, I would make the following argument:

I know there are substantial energy resources under the Roan Plateau. However, there are also other important resources on the top of the plateau, such as wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and watershed values. I understand that the BLM compromise goes a long way in protecting these values. However, I would rather sacrifice the energy resources under the Roan in order to completely protect these values. This is worth the cost to me and many other Western Slope residents and other Americans.

Energy companies have leased millions of acres on public lands, yet very little of this area is actually being developed. If we are iso much in need of developing the gas under the Roan, why don't the companies develop these areas first? If the Roan is put off limits for 20 years, we can always go back to the table later to determine whether the tradeoffs have changed.

Why can't politicians and the environmentalism machine pose and argument such as this? It is a shame that this is the way "the game" is played these days.

The thing is, echo, maybe YOU are willing to sacrifice the huge amount of available resources to possibly protect an undetermined amount of wildlife habitat, but at what cost to OTHERS? Not only the obvious others, like citizens at the mercy of the energy conglomerates world-wide, but much closer to home, too. Many people, especially retirees, own property on the Western Slope that they planned to retire on, peacefully, but they didn't know they didn't own the mineral rights. Ranchers, too, the world's real environmentalists- (and don't scoff- they absolutely are the caretakers of the leased BLM lands- their livlihood depends on it) are losing their grazing lands to drilling. Our family has both situations happening in Silt and Collbran- the drilling companies would much prefer to not do this, as it would be better for the local economies and cheaper for the drilling companies to not have to spread out so much. So people get hurt by not allowing drilling on the Roan- lots of people. So called environmentalists, who won't see the forest for the trees, so to speak, have not considered this, I think. In a perfect world, I would love nothing better than to have all BLM lands be pristine, and Ritter has done some good things, but this is not one of them. I think if more people saw the big picture and had better, less politically tainted info on how this would really work, it would be easier to work in cooperation with the BLM and the drilling companies to the satifaction of all concerned.

I'm confused by echo's posts. If millions of acres of public lands are undisturbed, isn't that what you want? Has it occurred to you that drilling is occurring on the Roan Plateau because...drum roll....THAT'S WHERE THE GAS ACUTALLY IS?!?

You act as if you can just drill anywhere and you'll find natural gas and oil. If you think there's gas elsewhere, go drill there. YOU DO IT. Nothing's stopping you or any other person who apparently doesn't understand either economics or the oil and gas business. Never mind that nothing will be found, at least you didn't drill on the Roan Plateau.

What is really amazing to me is that by drilling where the most natural gas is, not only do find the cheapest source of supply, but you actually get the most natural gas with the least surface disturbance. So by not drilling on the Roan Plateau, you actually cause more damage elsewhere because more wells have to be drilled to replace the gas that could be produced from the Roan.

TANSTAAFFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch)

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