A Novel Approach: Fighting Leases
By Peter Hart
Peter Hart is the Legal Director at Wilderness Workshop. He’s spent thousands of hours working to protect the Divide, and many more getting lost there.
In the early 2000’s, the Bush Administration sold over 80 leases in the Thompson Divide. Drilling boomed nearby. By 2008, thousands of new wells were being drilled every year just west of the Divide–up from a dozen annual well starts a decade before. “Progress” looked poised to pave over public lands and rural local character.
The best opportunity to protect special places like the Thompson Divide is at the ‘planning’ stage when federal agencies decide which areas are ‘available’ for leasing. If lands are made available to leasing, protection from drilling requires fighting the sale of individual leases. If leases are sold, drilling is a foregone conclusion…or so conventional wisdom went.
The Thompson Divide was opened to drilling more than a decade before the boom. Leasing happened quickly at the beginning of the boom, before folks understood what was going on.
Our backs were against the wall, but we were buoyed by the cause. Local communities rely upon Thompson Divide’s clean water, abundant wildlife, summer pastures, inspiring scenery and recreation opportunities. Protecting those values was non-negotiable. We were also emboldened by the fact that corrupt politics engineered a fire sale on our public lands without meaningful public engagement or consideration of what might be lost.
We had to fight, but we had no roadmap for prying so many leases from industry’s hands. Fortunately, in 2007, Wilderness Workshop and Pitkin County won a lease sale challenge confirming that “BLM conducted no environmental analysis and prepared no environmental record” when selling three oil and gas parcels within the Thompson Divide. The decision confirmed what everyone suspected–BLM’s leasing decisions were illegal.
Unfortunately, the decision applied to only three leases, and the judge didn’t demand that BLM do anything about the other 80 leases already sold. Further, the BLM still refused to admit it had done anything wrong.
Lucky for us, Thompson Divide is on the fringe of the gas play and the leaseholders who bought so many leases in the area were focused on drilling more promising leases further west. That gave us time to deep dive into the lease files, to organize and build support for the Thompson Divide Coalition, and to consider opportunities to challenge development proposals that may come.
Fast forward to 2012: the energy boom was over. Drillers were leaving in droves. Many leases were set to expire in the Divide, but leaseholders wanted BLM to suspend those leases and keep them on the books. It was clear speculation, but BLM grants requests–that’s what they do. This incensed the community. We challenged BLM’s suspension approvals and the agency’s authority to extend illegal leases. We appealed to the BLM’s State Director and then to administrative judges.
Our legal advocacy coupled with community outcry led the BLM to acknowledge that many of the leases had been issued in violation of the law. The agency had ignored bedrock environmental laws and cut the public out of important and controversial leasing decisions–that was illegal. In 2014, the BLM began a process to reconsider its leasing decisions.
Two years later, after public hearings, rounds of public comment, rallies, D.C. fly-ins, and so many letters, BLM canceled 25 leases in the Thompson Divide. There was loud protest from the energy companies and a lawsuit. We intervened in court to defend BLM’s decision. We won!
Nowhere else had so many leases been canceled all at once. The unified and unwavering voice of local communities drowned out industry objections. The Secretary of Interior and the BLM Director came to the Colorado State Capitol and righted wrongs perpetrated by prior administrations. They eliminated the threat of development on tens of thousands of acres within the Divide. This was the result of years of community engagement and advocacy. It’s no overstatement to say that we beat all the odds–thanks to all of you!
