Environmentalists say a decision this week to lease land for a coal mine expansion in a Colorado roadless area tips the Obama administrations hand on how it plans to manage the states backcountry forests.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to decide on the Colorado Roadless Rule late this year. The rule would forbid road-building on more than 4 million acres of remote forests while making exceptions for coal mines, ski areas and fire prevention.
With a decision looming, this weeks approval of a lease sale for a coal mine expansion in a roadless area near Paonia had the blessings of top officials in Washington, D.C.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsacks office gave local foresters the go-ahead to approve the lease, which would allow the West Elk coal mine to expand. The bigger mine would need methane vents to be drilled in the roadless area. They look similar to a coalbed methane well pad and would require some 6.5 miles of new roads.
This is really tipping the hand as to what will be in the final Colorado Roadless Rule, said Ted Zukoski, a lawyer for Earthjustice who opposes the mine expansion.
The national Roadless Rule has been in legal limbo since 2001, when former President Bill Clinton adopted it and former President George W. Bush suspended it in favor of allowing states to ask for their own rules.
Last month, the federal appeals court in Denver ordered the Clinton rule to be reinstated. But Colorado has been working on its rule since 2005, and the agriculture department the U.S. Forest Services parent agency is close to deciding on final approval.
Shortly after President Barack Obama took office, Vilsack ordered that all projects in roadless areas would have to be approved by his office.
That policy is still in effect, said Lee Ann Loupe, spokeswoman for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests, home to the coal mine expansion.
We did send the appropriate paperwork up through the department and received permission to go ahead and proceed with our analysis, Loupe said.
Formally, this weeks approval only allows a lease to be made, and it does not OK any road-building or disruption. The lease comes with a stipulation that the mine owner will have to abide by whatever roadless rule is in place.
Under the Clinton rule, roads couldnt be built for the mine expansion. But under the proposed Colorado rule, they could.
Our contention is that the Colorado rule is weaker than the national rule, and nothing shows it better than this decision, Zukoski said.
However, the Colorado rule includes a better inventory of current roadless areas and gives protection to some pristine forests that would be unprotected under the Clinton rule.
Conservation groups initially gave their reluctant support to the proposed Colorado rule, but they have lobbied against it for years and have succeeded in reducing the number of exceptions it makes to the road-building ban.
As for the Paonia mine expansion, Loupe said any plans to build methane vents will need further environmental analysis.
This is a long process, and this is just the initial step, Loupe said.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.