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Excerpts from Fall 2007 Newsletter

Drilling on the Baca National Wildlife Refuge
by Michael Blenden

The biggest news of 2007 on the Baca National Wildlife Refuge (Baca NWR) is the effort to deal with Lexam Explorations' Inc. (Lexam) prospecting for natural gas deposits under the refuge. Most of the mineral rights under the refuge, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and Baca Grande Subdivision are owned by Lexam. The company expressed its exploration plans to us in 2006.

The surface estate owner, the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service, has little control over the drilling activity. Our decision last winter was to not apply the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in assessing impacts to the Baca NWR since the exploration did not require a permit from the Service and the drilling wasn't a federal action. Instead we, mostly refuge manager Ron Garcia,worked with the local community and Lexam on a negotiated operating plan that would guide exploration and identify and mitigate as many impacts as reasonable. That effort included a number of public meetings and communications with stakeholders to identify issues and concerns to be included in the plan.

The Service decision to not use NEPA was challenged in federal court by the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council in the spring of 2007. That case is still in court but the Service soon decided to conduct a NEPA analysis regardless of the outcome of the court case. The Service proposes to establish standards and measures for ensuring that Lexam's use of the surface estate is reasonable and does not cause undue surface disturbance. The scoping period of the environmental analysis was started on August 17, 2007 with a well attended public meeting in Crestone. The 30-day scoping period ended on September 17 with approximately 49,000 comments received. The Natural Resources Defense Council provided approximately 47,000 comments in a form letter format.

It is absolutely great that the public is so interested in gas exploration on the Baca NWR. But, I wish we could generate a tenth the interest in our funding needs and many other challenges that the public can influence. Unfortunately it seems a vast number of the comments come from does that mistakenly think the Service has the ability to prohibit this exploration activity. This is simply note the case. The Service , like any other surface owner is obligated to provide access to the subsurface estate if owned by another party, while doing the best it can to keep surface disturbance to a reasonable level.

We are waiting for completion of the draft in early November. In the mean time please let us know if you have questions regarding these activities on the Baca NWR.

3rd Annual Kid's Crane Festival

Migration Game

Once again, Kid's Crane Festival was a success. We had approximately 200 kids and parents attend. A free BBQ lunch was provided at noon, then the afternoon was packed with fun, educational activities which included: a puppet show, hay rides, games about bird migration, bird nest and egg searches, art activities, crane talks and a hands-on skull identification activity. Thank you to everyone who helped with the event.

Hay Rides