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SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge Friday tossed a lawsuit by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and other groups that claimed the Bureau of Land Management illegally approved natural gas leases on the West Tavaputs Plateau in Carbon County.
The lawsuit involved leases to four parcels that were part of the 77 leases yanked in 2009 by then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who said they needed further study.
Some of those leases were deferred, while the BLM ultimately approved others at the conclusion of the review.
In this case, XTO Energy submitted applications to drill in what's called the Seven Wells Project.
The leases were part of a natural gas project that envisioned 807 wells from 538 well pads. A draft environmental analysis was completed and sent for public comment in mid-2011. Final approval of the lease issuance occurred later that year.
Environmental groups in a subsequent lawsuit filed in 2015 asserted the federal agency acted illegally by not requiring an additional inventory of cultural resources in the area or properly considering other impacts to the environment.
U.S. District for Utah Judge Jill N. Parrish rejected those arguments, upholding the BLM's decision.
"The court does not find this conclusion either arbitrary or capricious," she wrote.
Critics said the BLM in Utah should have followed the lead of Colorado's BLM that deferred similar leases in favor of conducting an inventory of resources on the ground.
But Parrish said federal land managers were able to sufficiently prove enough analysis had been undertaken.
"Plaintiffs have provided no evidence that the extensive inventory information BLM had on hand from previous studies was inadequate for purposes of the leasing decisions at issue," she wrote.
"On this record, BLM had sufficient information to proceed with leasing decisions; any alternative that required the agency to stop leasing simply to obtain information that it already had on hand would be needlessly redundant and ultimately unreasonable," Parrish added.
Joe Bushyhead, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the organization is evaluating its appeal options.
“We’re disappointed in today’s ruling that keeps four oil and gas leases sold by BLM in 2011 in the Desolation Canyon proposed wilderness on the books. These leases are part of a larger natural gas development scheme proposed by XTO Energy that threaten Desolation Canyon and Nine Mile Canyon,” he said.
