News Bite
Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Western Energy Corridor
Suit alleges 6,000-mile corridor would threaten wildlife and some of the West's most scenic lands, all while ignoring the push for renewable energy in the region.By Courtney Lowery, 7-08-09
 |
|
 | |
| Photo courtesy of the West-wide Energy Corridor Programmatic EIS Information Center. | |
|
Several environmental groups and one county in Colorado filed a lawsuit Tuesday, saying the energy corridor the Bush administration designated through thousands of miles in the West doesn’t do enough to encourage renewable energy and it puts wildlife and public lands at risk.
In the complaint filed in federal district court in San Francisco, the coalition writes:
“Rather than take this opportunity to transition the region toward a new energy pathway, the agencies – which include the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service (collectively “Agencies”) – created a sprawling, hopscotch network of 6,000 miles of rights-of-way known as the “West-wide Energy Corridors,” without considering the environmental impacts of that designation, without analyzing any alternatives to their preferred pathways, without considering numerous federal policies that support renewable energy development, without ensuring the corridors’ consistency with federal and local land use plans, and without consulting other federal agencies or western states and local governments.”
The complaint alleges that the federal government violated several laws in creating the corridor, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act.
The Colorado county involved in the suit is San Miguel County, where Art Goodtimes is a county commissioner. Goodtimes said in a release: “We need the federal government working side by side with our Western governors and local leaders to build a new energy economy for the West, based on clean, renewable energy sources. We hope the Obama administration will work with us to fix the flaws in this hasty, ill-conceived plan.”
Others named in the filing as plaintiffs include: Oregon Natural Desert Association; Sierra Club; Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance; The Wilderness Society; Western Resource Advocates; Western Watersheds Project; the Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife; Great Old Broads for Wilderness; Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center; National Parks Conservation Association; National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Energy first mapped the 6,000-mile corridor, spanning 11 Western states, in 2005 as part of the 2005 Energy Act, legislation the groups now allege the government violated.
A BLM spokeswoman would not comment to the Associated Press yesterday, saying the government could not speak on the pending litigation.
You can read more information on the project, as well as see or download the maps of the corridors (including maps of the environmental impact statements the agencies performed) here.
The agencies completed a “programmatic” environmental impact statement late last year after taking public comments in 2006 to the first draft of the maps and then a draft of the environmental impact statement. According to the Department of Energy, 82 percent of the corridors are on BLM land, 16 percent are on Forest Service land and the other 2 percent are on National Park land, Bureau of Reclamation land or Department of Defense property.
The Department of Energy late last year said in a release: “In some cases, corridors intersect or approach sensitive lands or resources. Most often these intersections follow existing infrastructure such as highways, transmission lines or pipelines to avoid placing corridors in “greenfield” (undeveloped) locations.”
The lawsuit says the corridor would “impermissibly cross or impact lands with high conservation, scenic, natural, and other values,” including the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Arches National Park in Utah, the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in Idaho, Colorado’s Naturita Canyon in Colorado and the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.
Click here for the press release from the Center for Biological Diversity on the lawsuit and here for the complaint itself as a PDF.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
These lawsuits beocme fund raisers to support---whatever cause they have thought up. It should be a requirement for anyone trying to shut down energy production or transmission to provide a viable alternative.
If we do not have fuel, we can kiss America as we know it good bye.
I live in Texas 7 months of the year and 5 months in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (because of the cooler weather) .
In Texas you can find deer and any other wildlife living quite well in and around the wells . In Michigan bear, deer, moose ,ground hogs.and many other species adapt to living around people and would do the same if drilling for oil happened here.
Being in the renewable arena myself I can state categorically that these proposed corridors DO provide needed transmission capacity for solar, wind and geothermal.
What is the latest estimate as to when those renewables would be able to kick in with a significant percentage of our needs?
I am not a scientist or engineer but I think a lot of people are not being realistic on the time it will take to switch to alternate fuels.
We have enough natural gas to last a 100 years according to T Boone Pickens who until recently was selling wind power.
For example, siting of wind facilities in the State of Wisconsin is pretty much dependent upon local government decisions, although a bill in Assembly would establish some statewide criteria but that'll take time.
Pickens may be right about the NG supply but we don't have infrastructure for that alternative and such would, again, take time and cost (somebody) lots of cap outlay.
Right now we have to go with available technology and existing infrastructure which pretty much limits where, what, when and how we utilize renewables.
Environmental issues are real and need to be addressed in as solidly a scientific and objective manner as is possible. Aestetics concerns and other more subjective issues are a bit tougher. But as Arnold (more or less) said: " If we can't do solar power in the Mojave where can we do it?"