Despite the raging wildfires, the dry weather, and all the other bad stuff happening in the state of Colorado, the news coming from the area isn’t all bad. A recent email exchange from Sinjin Eberle, President of the Colorado TU, brought good tidings of a recent victory for the group.
The Bureau of Land Management had approved a plan to allow oil and natural gas development on the Roan Plateau. District Judge Marcia Krieger recently overruled the plan and asked the BLM to reconsider.
Read all about it in the Denver Post here.
Sinjin wrote this for the Colorado TU magazine,
“With multiple fires raging across Colorado, the most dismal snowpack in years, and horribly insufficient streamflows in nearly all of our rivers, it would be easy to let a feeling of gloom overtake an angler-conservationist in this state. These are certainly negatives in our world right now, but they certainly should not overshadow some significant and game-changing wins that Colorado TU has experienced lately.
You may be aware of our involvement with oil and gas development issues on the Roan Plateau. In short, Colorado TU, in partnership with National TU and the Grand Valley Anglers chapter, have been working to protect three critical native cutthroat streams from unwise natural gas development efforts on the top of the plateau. Now, TU is not against oil and gas development – we all drive cars and have homes to heat, but there is a difference between unfettered development, and locating drilling facilities and supporting infrastructure in a way that may reduce or eliminate threats to important aquatic gems.
This week, Colorado TU and a group of allied conservation interests – represented by a skilled team of lawyers from Earthjustice – won a significant lawsuit pertaining to the Roan Plateau, where the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will now be required to take a better look at their original leasing plan on the Roan, and develop a new plan that takes into account many of the things that TU had been pushing for (most importantly, considering less damaging approaches to obtaining the natural gas below the Roan). This is a major victory for one of Colorado’s treasured landscapes and the trout that depend upon it. We now have a second chance to work with BLM to “get it right” for the Roan.
Similarly, we also recently were approved for a very significant grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation that will allow us to continue partnering with the BLM for on-the-ground restoration work atop the Roan Plateau as well – helping to protect and restore habitat for native trout, improve riparian conditions, and boost watershed health.”
There hasn’t been much good news on the conservation front in a while, and the constant stream of bad stuff can wear anybody down. That just makes the good news that much sweeter.
Keep fighting the good fight.
