WildEarth Guardians

Monday, August 8, 2016
Guardians Calls on Obama Administration to Reject Massive Public Lands Fracking Plans in Utah

Monument Butte Drilling Development Will Add Nearly 6,000 New Wells, Produce More Climate Pollution than Coal-fired Power Plants
Contact: Jeremy Nichols, (303) 437-7663, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org

Vernal, UT—WildEarth Guardians today called on the Obama Administration to reject a plan to open up more than 100,000 acres of public lands in Utah for fracking, a move that threatens to unleash as much carbon pollution as 29 coal-fired power plants.

“This is a climate disaster that we simply can’t afford to allow,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “Nobody in their right mind would say ‘yes’ to 29 coal-fired power plants, but that’s exactly what the Obama Administration seems to be proposing here.”

The Monument Butte oil and gas project would allow Newfield Exploration Corp., a major U.S. oil and gas company, to drill 5,750 new oil and gas wells across 119,000 acres of publicly owned lands in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah, an area larger than the City of Denver.  The project would turn an area already heavily impacted by oil and gas drilling and fracking into a complete oil and gas industrial sacrifice zone.

Worse, the increase in drilling and fracking comes as smog levels in the remote Uinta Basin have exceeded those in Los Angeles and other big cities. Studies have linked smog in the region to unchecked oil and gas development, which produces more than 98% of all smog-forming emissions.

Pipeline leaks, tank venting, engines, and drilling and fracking activities all contribute to the region’s air pollution problem.

The Utah State Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has proposed to approve the Monument Butte project even though it would fuel more air and climate pollution.

In comments submitted today, Guardians called on the Bureau of Land Management to reject the Monument Butte project, calling out the failure of the agency to account for the clean air and climate impacts of the drilling and fracking. 

“We can’t possibly protect our clean air and our climate if we keep giving the fossil fuel industry a free pass to destroy our public lands,” said Nichols.  “President Obama needs to draw a line, we simply can’t afford to allow our public lands to be sacrificed to the oil and gas industry.”

A decision on the Monument Butte oil and gas project is likely by the end of 2016.

Photos of the Monument Butte project area can be viewed here >>