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Ourpubliclands.org is a place for hunters, anglers and other outdoor enthusiasts to get information about the public lands where they enjoy their favorite activities. The public lands issues this website focuses on include:
- Oil and Gas Drilling
- Oil Shale Development
- Public Lands Sales
- Hardrock Mining
- Protecting Wildlife Habitat and Migration Corridors
- Protecting our Recreation Opportunities on Public Lands
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Archived
- Recreational Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Plan Released
- Salazar scraps sale of oil-and-gas leases in Utah
- BLM Takes Step Backward on Utah Energy Leasing
- Interior secretary shows early promise
- Why We Can't Drill Our Way to Lower Gas Prices
- Sportsmen Release Responsible Oil and Gas Recommendations
- Spread the Word about Public Lands with an eCard
- Help Protect Our Public Lands from Global Warming
- National Landscape Conservation Act Passes in the House
- Vote for your favorite public land
- Results from our inaugural photo contest
- New Report by Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation Highlights Economic Impact of Hunting and Fishing
- See more archived stories...
Oil Shale Development
On November 18th the Bureau of Land Management prematurely finalized regulations to govern the commercial development of oil shale on 2 million acres of federal lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. However, the new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, is stepping in to ensure development does not move forward without sufficient information and environmental protections.
Secretary Salazar recently announced that while the department will consider oil shale as an energy source, it would do so only after cautious and careful consideration. Some of the questions that remain unanswered include the amount of energy required to extract oil from shale rock, the amount of water needed for the process, and the impacts to local watersheds, wildlife habitat and recreation.
Serious environmental concerns still exist about extracting the resource. Oil shale production will require upwards of 315 million gallons of water a day -- enough water for two cities the size of Denver. This is scarce water we already need for drinking, agriculture, livestock and wildlife. In addition, most of America's oil shale is found underneath valued wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, mountain lions, bald eagles, sage grouse and native trout. Oil shale development will turn these habitats into industrialized moonscapes.
Additionally, commercial technology to economically extract the resource still does not exist. Dirk Kempthorne, the Interior Secretary under the Bush Administration, stated it would be 2015 before shale development produced oil. A spokesperson for Shell Exploration & Production Co. said it would be even longer -- until 2015 until they would be ready for leasing and another decade after that until production.
Although new technologies for extracting oil from shale rock are being explored, there still remains much concern over the amount of energy required to bring the rock to such extreme temperatures, the amount of water needed for the process, and impacts to the watersheds, wildlife habitat and recreation.