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How to Write an Effective Comment Letter Board Elects Two Board Members |
Board Chair's Message Friends of Nine Mile Canyon: [contents]
How to Write an Effective Public Comment The West Tavaputs Plateau Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has been released for public comment
through May 1, 2008. The DEIS is nearly 2,000 pages long, leaving most of us too little time to read,
comprehend and respond to it before the comment deadline. Therefore, the Coalition is dedicating this newsletter
to helping you write a substantive and heartfelt public comment letter, and providing you information The purpose and need of the West Tavaputs Plateau Draft Environmental Impact Statement (WTP DEIS) is to consider the proposal for full field development of natural gas resources on the West Tavaputs Plateau in an efficient, orderly, and environmentally sensitive manner. The BLM is considering this proposed project to provide for the extraction and recovery of natural gas from Federal oil and gas leases on the WTP held by Bill Barrett Corp. and other operators in accordance with its multiple-use mandate and the goals and objectives of the President’s National Energy Plan. National mineral leasing policies, and the regulations by which they are enforced, recognize the statutory right of leaseholders to develop mineral resources to meet continuing increase in the United States’ demand for natural gas, so long as undue environmental degradation is not incurred. (DEIS ch1. p1-2) The Nine Mile Canyon Coalition has not objected to legal development of energy resources on the West Tavaputs Plateau, but we have been emphatic that culturally-rich Nine Mile Canyon, with its world-renown prehistoric rock art and stunning landscapes, be protected and preserved by using alternate routes to avoid the canyon and employing technologies such as directional drilling to mitigate (minimize) negative impacts to the canyon and the surrounding region. The “purpose and need” of the DEIS mentions only “undue environmental degradation,” and does not mention undue degradation to cultural resources or tourism. A few key items to remember as you compose your letters are:
The full DEIS can be viewed online at: http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/price/energy/Oil_Gas.html Following, is a summary of issues and concerns that were raised by the Coalition in the 2005 public scoping
process, and the BLM was urged to address these in the resulting EIS. It is required that these issues be addressed
in a comprehensive and complete DEIS, otherwise we, the public are unable to determine if the proposed
project can be carried out in a manner that protects all public values. If these issues are not adequately
addressed, including baseline data from which to measure future mitigation results, the DEIS should be
withdrawn until such data can be provided in a revised document.
Briefly share a favorite canyon memory, or why your favorite spot in the canyon is your favorite spot. [contents]
Coalition Elects Two New Board Members Two seasoned and staunch supporters of preserving and protecting Nine Mile Canyon have been elected to the
Nine Mile Canyon Coalition’s Board of Directors. In the Coalition’s March 2008 board meeting, former Coalition
Board Chair, Margene Hackney, and Dr. Deanne Matheny, an archaeologist and attorney were elected by unanimous
vote. [contents]
Issues To Raise In Our Public Comments 1) The major impact of the West Tavaputs Gas Project is
the industrial traffic that travels through Nine Mile Canyon
and Cottonwood Canyon to access the West Tavaputs
Plateau. We have been recording the impact of the gas drilling
on “The World's Longest Art Gallery” since drilling
commenced in 2005 on the approved 38-well West Tavaputs
Plateau Drilling Project. We immediately started to
receive reports from sightseers about dust and industrial
traffic in the Canyon. We have compiled hundreds of photos
documenting the impacts of industrial traffic in the Canyon.
Surprisingly, the BLM admits in the West Tavaputs
Plateau Draft Environmental Impact Statement (WTP
DEIS) section 5.12 that they cannot mitigate the impacts of
industrial traffic on the cultural resources by selecting any
of the proposed alternatives. The reality is that the only
way to save the canyon from the effects of heavy industrial
traffic is to use bypass roads that will keep the traffic away The DEIS proposes upgrading and building approximately 180 miles of Gold Book roads on the Tavaputs Plateau south of Nine Mile Canyon. These are smooth, wide roads with crowns and drainage ditches. Providing the Trail Canyon/Harmon Canyon bypass route would require upgrading less than six miles of an existing road through Trail Canyon. This seems like a small price to pay to preserve Nine Mile Canyon’s legacy. This alternative would reduce industrial traffic running through Nine Mile by nearly two thirds, as it would allow traffic to merely cross Nine Mile Canyon, rather than traverse long sections of the canyon. High numbers of negative comments received from disappointed tourists have been recorded, wherein their experiences along the Nine Mile Road have been ruined by the nearly constant industrial traffic that is damaging the rock art and poses health and safety risks. The only reasonable alternative to these conflicts is a bypass road system. 2) The draft EIS says that the average daily traffic in the Canyon would be 550 vehicles with nine drill rigs operating on the Tavaputs. Carbon County did a 24 hour traffic count when there were two drill rigs operating and that traffic count was 340 vehicles. If you extrapolate from two drill rigs to nine you get a daily traffic count of 1,530 vehicles per day! The Canyon road has had only minor improvements since its construction in the late 19th Century, so how can it withstand this prolonged heavy traffic? How can the rock art and cultural sites survive this activity? The traffic counts that the Coalition has done since 2005 verify the County Survey. The Coalition counts of sightseer traffic show a steadily decreasing number of people coming to the Canyon to see the rock art and it is clear that the word has spread about the industrial traffic and the dust. 3) The BLM proposes a monitoring system wherein the
BLM and the Bill Barrett Corporation would pick a company
to monitor the project for compliance with the stipulations
and mitigation directives agreed to, and approved in
the EIS. The monitoring company would report to the
BLM and BBC. This is completely unacceptable based on
the last four years of experience where the BLM allowed
winter drilling after promising there wouldn't be any and
couldn't mitigate the traffic problems even after they were
shown photos of the damage being done. An example of a
potential problem in the DEIS is where the statement is
made that BBC has informally agreed to help with problems
on the Gate Canyon Road resulting from the traffic. What
is required is an oversight committee like the one set up in
Wyoming because of corruption in the Pinedale BLM office.
Members of the oversight committee should include
stakeholders such as the BLM, the State Institutional Trust
Lands Administration (SITLA), hunters, property owners,
the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, Carbon County, the State
Historic Preservation Office and others. The monitoring 4) The BLM has consistently refused to admit that they are responsible for seeing that all significant impacts from the West Tavaputs Project are mitigated no matter where they occur or who does the impact. An example of this is the Dry Canyon Compressor Station (located in Nine Mile Canyon) which started out with two compressors and has grown to ten. The pollution from this compressor station has never been measured or modeled even though it is in a Issues To Raise In Our Public Comments by the Impact Rese arch Committee narrow canyon with a high concentration of dust added to the chemical emissions from station engines. The BLM insists that the pollution (visual, sound, and chemical) is beyond their responsibility to mitigate because the compressor station is on private property (BBC’s). A federal court ruled in the Calvert Cliffs decision of the 1970’s that the federal lead agency was required to see that all significant impacts were mitigated. If the impacts cannot be mitigated then the proposed action cannot be carried out. This applies not only to the Dry Canyon Compressor Station but also to the traffic impact on the Gate Canyon, Nine Mile Canyon, and Cottonwood Canyon Roads, as well the impacts to any of the cultural resources in the region. 5) This DEIS offers less protection for Nine Mile Canyon’s
cultural resources than what’s currently in place. One alternative
briefly suggests having the county construct pull-outs
and install signs and trails at the identified sites as addressed
in the BLM’s 1995 Special Recreation and Cultural Area
Management Plan (SRCMP). However, those needs are
only part of the 1995 SRCMP. The plan also called for a
visitor contact station, a full time archaeologist, and a full
time recreation planner. There would have been temporary 6) We also need to ask for a full time law enforcement presence
in the canyon, whether it be a Carbon or Duchesne
County deputy or a BLM ranger, to enforce traffic regulations 7) In our public comments, we need to ask for reconsideration of the by-pass roads (see Draft EIS "Alternative Access Routes", chapter 2, section 2.8.6 http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/price/energy/Oil_Gas/Draft_EIS.html), full implementation of the recreation and use plan, and full time law enforcement in the canyon. The wildlife plan is irresponsible and weak, and the state is going to lose a large financial investment it has made over the past several years to increase the deer and elk herds on the Tavaputs Plateau. 8) At public scoping meetings held in 2005 regarding this EIS process, the BLM assured those attending that there would be no surface occupancy allowed on Federal public lands in Nine Mile Canyon. This was proposed in their Agency Preferred Alternative for the Price Field Office Resource Management Plan. However, three of the alternatives in this DEIS, including the Agency (BLM's) Preferred Alternative, propose two pump stations to be located in very scenic and archaeologically rich areas of the canyon, one on federal public land and one on private property (not BBC's property). By doing so, the BLM is violating another public commitment made in their Draft Resource Management Plan (DRMP) Could it be coincidence that the final decision on the DRMP has been timed to allow for industrial surface occupancy to be approved before a final decision on the DRMP is announced? 9) The DEIS alternatives address the project area’s surface
disturbance (such as well pads, access roads, compressor
and pump stations, and storage facilities) as the area of potential 10) On November 8, 2005, the Coalition requested participation in the National Historic Preservation Act’s (NHPA) Section 106 Consultation process (36 CFR 800). This was not the first, nor the last request made by the Coalition, and other interested groups including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to be a consulting party. But even though Section 106 of the NHPA requires the BLM to allow interested parties to participate in the process, conservation organizations have been denied that privilege. If the Coalition had been granted opportunities to participate, numerous cultural sites that have already been severely damaged along the roadsides could have been identified and protected. We reported damage to one particular site a year ago, but it wasn’t until the past few weeks that the BLM actually went out to check on the damage. In the mean time, the same site was damaged four more times before they could find the time to get to it. Not an effective measure. Current mitigation plans relating to the 38-well EA are now proven ineffective and those in the WTP DEIS aren’t any better.
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NRHP Nomination is in the Home Stretch! Faithful readers of this newsletter have been patiently reading updates on the Nomination of Nine Mile Canyon to the National Register of Historic Places (“the Register”) since 2001. This “space odyssey” may just about be over. The Coalition and BLM originally formed a partnership on this endeavor: The Coalition was to hire an archeologist to write the narrative sections; the BLM was to produce the maps and photos. The Coalition hired Jerry Spangler, Director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance, and funded $12,000 for the writing of the very technical sections and lists of locations of prehistoric rock markings (art) and cultural sites. The BLM has gone through new state and local directors and since 2001 and has been barraged by the gas and oil industry to approve applications to drill (APDs). During this time BLM mandated the boundaries of this archaic district be contained within canyon bottoms and only one kilometer wide on either side of Minnie-Maud Creek (Nine Mile Creek). The Coalition pressed for rim-to-rim boundaries but lost. The federal regulations concerning procedures to nominate an archaic district are very complex and specific. Plus, the Utah State Historic Preservation Office and the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO), Wilson Martin, consider this nomination very significant because there are other similar nominations waiting in the wings. At this point the nomination has been approved by
the BLM State Director, Selma Sierra, and the national
BLM Federal Preservation Officer, Robin Burgess.
BLM officially delivered the nomination to the SHPO
at the end of March 2008. As this article is written in
early April, the SHPO has sent letters to the landowners
located within the proposed district boundaries,
informing them that they have the right to support or
object to this nomination. If a majority of landowners
support –or do not formally object in writing– the On June 19, 2008 there will be a meeting of the Board of State History, 1:00 p.m., at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Capitol Board Room, to review the nomination. Property owner objections must be received by the SHPO prior to this meeting. The June 19 meeting is open to the public but is not a public hearing. (Questions can be directed to Cory Jensen, NRHP Coordinator at the Division of State History, (801-533-3559, coryjensen@utah.gov). After the June 19 meeting, all comments will be forwarded along with the nomination to the BLM. The BLM will review the comments and determine whether to forward the nomination to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. The Keeper makes the final determination as to eligibility and listing to the Register. What could happen – “best” and “worst” case scenarios? Best case: The nomination will proceed along this path, the BLM will send the nomination to the Keeper, and the Keeper will determine Nine Mile Canyon eligible for the Register and list it on the National Register of Historic Places. Nine Mile Canyon will finally be recognized as an important place in preserving our Nation’s heritage. Worst case: Politics could intervene. Unnamed persons at the local, state, and/or national levels are already trying to delay or subvert the process for their own purposes. They could get away with it and Nine Mile Canyon will be back in limbo, without the honor it so richly deserves. What can we do? The Nine Mile Canyon Coalition and its allies will be following the nomination situation closely and will send Alerts to the public if interruptions occur or threats materialize. We ask our readers in advance to react swiftly and decisively if you see an email alert. We have all come too far and invested too much to have this fail. We thank you in advance for your vigilance.
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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause At the March 2008 Board meeting of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, Board member Jim Brown shared a story about Virginia Nutter Price, daughter of the famous Cattle Baron Preston Nutter, who declared that her favorite petroglyph was the “Santa and reindeer” panel, located high on a cliff in the canyon. The story was told during deliberation of the “Save Santa” public relations campaign (see press release below). The story prompted Blaine Miller to quip: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause." The purpose of the PR campaign was to encourage the public to comment on the West Tavaputs Plateau Natural Gas Full Field Development Plan DEIS by the May 1, 2008 deadline. It was approved and the press release is carried below. It will be on the Send2Press.com web site until March 26, 2009. You can view it at www.send2press.com/newswire/2008-03-0326-003.shtml. PRESS RELEASE: March 27, 2008 Bill Bryant, the photographer who managed to photograph “Santa” using a super-telephoto lens said that, “The destruction going on here is tragic. This entire canyon is a national treasure that should be made into a national monument or park.” Additional photos of “Santa” and other petroglyphs can be viewed at: www.flickr.com/photos/bryant99/. So, why is this happening? The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has sold mineral leases in Nine Mile Canyon and on plateaus north and south of it. BLM has not ordered industrial traffic to be re-routed to preserve countless prehistoric and historic sites in the canyon. “BLM has decided to do the bidding of the gas and oil industry and the Bush Administration while sacrificing cultural and historic values, air and water quality,” Miller said. “It’s time to restore balance to BLM’s public land policies and decisions.” What can be done? Fortunately, there is time to stop further destruction. A public comment period ends May 1 on the BLM West
Tavaputs Plateau Natural Gas Full Field Development Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The proponent prepared Petro-Canada Resources (USA) is also drilling in the area. Public comments can be submitted electronically and all information can be found on the Nine Mile Coalition web site at: www.ninemilecanyoncoalition.org/. “While the intentions and beliefs of the original artist(s) will never be known, the beauty of rock art is that future generations will continue to be inspired by it,” Miller explained. “Of course this ‘Santa’ interpretation must clearly be seen as ethnocentric by later observers; it is not likely that Santa, the elf, and reindeer were in the mind of the original people making the markings.” According to Miller, “The only way to save ‘Santa’ and the world-renown rock art of Nine Mile Canyon from destruction is for people to get involved and make their voices heard to BLM and their elected officials across the country. This place needs to be saved for future generations.” [contents]
Annual Spring Clean-Up Please mark your calendars and plan to join the
Nine Mile Canyon Coalition and the College We’ll spend the morning sprucing up the Daddy Canyon Interpretive Trail and Picnic Area and picking up trash along the road. We’ll regroup later for a potluck lunch and short membership meeting. Then to reward ourselves for a job well-done, we’lll spend the afternoon touring rock art and cultural sites with our archaeology experts. So, pack your work gloves, hat, sunscreen, plenty to drink and a potluck contribution ,and join us for a wonderful Spring day in the canyon! [contents]
The Board of the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition meets at least six times each year to discuss issues and plan activities. Following, is the schedule of Coalition Board meetings through 2008, and you are always welcome to attend.
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