WOC Wins Coalbed Methane Appeal

by Tom Darin

Another one of our appeals to the Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) has paid off handsomely. In April, IBLA judges extended a previous ruling that prevented oil and gas leases in the Powder River Basin that were to be used for coalbed methane (CBM) extraction to leases in another Bureau of Land Management field office that is facing the next major CBM development push in Wyoming.

Our appeal successfully argued that the Wyoming BLM illegally sold oil and gas leases in April 2000. As we pointed out, the agency justified the sale with a pre-leasing environmental study based on a badly outdated land-use plan which failed to consider the likelihood of future coalbed methane extraction projects and CBM's unique environmental impacts. After three years of battling with the BLM and an industry intervener, IBLA agreed with us and WOC prevailed.

The decision has major implications, since this field office, which covers the Rawlins/Great Divide resource area, will be making critical decisions regarding the next major coalbed methane play in Wyoming, with two current projects alone predicting more than 6,000 CBM wells.

Further, because a good percentage of the Rawlins/Great Divide resource area remains unleased for oil and gas, the BLM must now halt all leasing in the area until it properly revises its resource management plan (RMP) to consider the unique impacts of CBM development. In fact, the BLM pulled 12 parcels from its June oil and gas lease sale, covering 6,000 acres of public lands in the area, as a direct response to the recent decision.

The RMP revision process is underway and will be completed in late 2004 or early 2005. Until that time, our recent victory should ensure that no new leases are sold and used for CBM extraction - allowing the agency the proper time to study and review environmental impacts before making irretrievable leasing commitments to industry.