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Dirty Coal Should Stay in the Ground

2011-11-03T21:19:06Z

Sharon Buccino, Director, Land Program, Washington, DC

Today, the Obama Administration proposed more coal mining. The proposal would mine over 3,500 acres of federal coal near the town of Alton, UT. Much of the mine will be an open strip mine – removing up to 300 tons of soil and rock to get to the coal. The dust and lights from the mine threaten the glory of the night skies in nearby Bryce Canyon National Park – known for some of the best star-gazing in the world. The mining also threatens the small businesses in nearby Panguitch, a national historic district. The strip mine and the daily coal truck trips through town will destroy the quiet and stunning scenery upon which the local businesses depend.

The Bureau of Land Management released today’s proposal in response to an application to lease federal coal by Alton Coal Development LLC. The company secured permission from the State of Utah earlier this year to dig private coal in the area. NRDC has challenged the state permit in the Utah Supreme Court. Now, BLM has proposed to expand the mining dramatically by authorizing almost ten times the amount permitted by the state. The state permit authorizes 2 tons of coal to be mined annually for 3 years. The federal proposal under consideration would lease almost 60 million tons of coal over an area a quarter of the size of Manhattan.

The BLM has completed a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The analysis assesses the environmental consequences of the proposed mining. The draft analysis acknowledges that the mining could result in air pollution exceeding federal standards. The area is rich in Native American and pioneer history. The draft analysis finds that mining will adversely impact sites eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The Administration will make a decision whether to proceed with the mining after reviewing the comments received. BLM has scheduled public meetings over the next month in Alton, Kanab, Panguich, Cedar City and Salt Lake City. The agency is also accepting comments for via mail or email until January 6, 2012.

Let’s keep this coal in the ground. We have better options to provide a secure and prosperous energy future. We don’t need the dirty air, dirty water and trashed land that coal mining will bring to this area.

Salazar's Gift to the Nation - Saving Our Last Wild Lands

2010-12-29T17:28:02Z

Sharon Buccino, Director, Land Program, Washington, DC

In 1960, American author Wallace Stegner wrote, “We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.” To read Stegner's complete Wilderness Letter click here.

Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964. Many of our nation’s wilderness quality lands, however, have not secured protection under the Wilderness Act. An area must be individually designated as a Wilderness Area by an act of Congress to qualify for the protections of the Wilderness Act.

On December 23, Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar took a critical step to preserve our nation’s last wild lands. Standing in front of the Recreational Equipment Inc (REI) building in Denver, Salazar issued a Secretarial Order highlighting the importance of the wilderness values of the public lands. The order affirms the Bureau of Land Management’s obligation to identify the lands with wilderness characteristics that exist and to provide for their protection.

Over ten million acres across the West have wilderness characteristics, but have not been designated as wilderness by Congress. Some of the lands at stake include Utah’s Upper Desolation Canyon, Wyoming’s Adobe Town and New Mexico’s Otero Mesa. Prior to Salazar’s order, we were losing these areas one by one as new roads were bull-dozed across them for oil and gas drilling rigs.

Salazar has reaffirmed the value of what wilderness means. He has acted to fulfill the plea Stegner made 50 years ago – a plea for glory, a plea for beauty, a plea for sanity. Thank you Secretary Salazar for your gift to the nation.

Terrific? Terrible? Reliance on Natural Gas Is Somewhere in Between

2008-10-07T20:38:04Z

Sharon Buccino, Director, Land Program, Washington, DC

Terrific or terrible — this was the phrase that my nine-year daughter came up with as I pondered last minute changes to the title for the natural gas paper that I had been working on with my colleagues at NRDC for several months. She wanted to go ride bikes that Saturday afternoon and knew if she helped me come up with a title, we would get out the door sooner.

Terrific or terrible — it had a nice ring to it. But it was not quite right for the paper, which addressed challenging questions around the role of natural gas in America’s energy future. Unfortunately, it is not as black and white as my nine-year old hoped. Natural gas is terrific in some ways. First, the United States has a lot of it. Proven reserves — the amount of gas still in the ground that we know is there and can be recovered with current technology and under current economic conditions — equal 211 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf). This is enough gas to meet American natural gas consumption needs for over a decade. Second, burning natural gas for electricity is a lot cleaner than the dirty coal plants that we are still planning to build for power. Estimates suggest that we have at least five times current reserves in undiscovered technically recoverable natural gas.

In other ways, however, natural gas is terrible. While cleaner-burning than other fossil fuels, natural gas still releases dangerous carbon dioxide into the air. In order to prevent dangerous global warming, America must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent or more. We cannot do this by continuing to rely on burning fossil fuels for power. Instead, we must look to increased efficiency and renewables to meet our energy needs.

Moreover, drilling can quickly transform a natural habitat into an industrial wasteland. Each field of well pads is accompanied by a dense web of power lines, miles of pipelines and roads, waste pits, compressors and other production facilities. See this gallery of images from Wyoming’s Upper Green River Valley, an area that’s seen extensive natural gas development in recent years.) Drilling for gas also brings dangerous changes underground. In places like Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, each coal bed methane well pumps thousands of gallons of water a day from precious aquifers. People living near oil and gas wells are getting sick. Not simply sick to their stomach from the scars left on the western landscape they love, but sick with burning eyes and painful headaches — symptoms associated with the toxic substances found in oil and gas.

So, terrific or terrible? Turns out natural gas is some of both. My nine year-old deserves affordable energy to heat our home and cook our food. Right now this is natural gas. But she also deserves a future that is secure from catastrophic weather that global warming can cause. She deserves an economy that is secure and robust. She deserves a society that is at peace, rather than one sending its soldiers to foreign lands to protect oil supplies. Natural gas will keep my daughter warm and fed today, but her future will be built on efficiency and renewable energy — not on natural gas.

Read Finding the Balance: The Role of Natural Gas in America’s Energy Future, an NRDC issue paper released in October 2008.