A Little Help PLEASE. Save Some Wilderness. Comments due Wednesday.

Thank you!  

15 minute podcast is up if ya wanna hear it. https://suwa.org/wild-utah-podcast-episode-18-drilling-in-labyrinth-cany...

Comments taken through tomorrow. Vote for the planet. 

Thanks for that update, Ned. 

Comments accepted through Monday.  HELP! 

Comment here: https://p2a.co/V5DN0kO

Info here: https://suwa.org/save-labyrinth-canyon-from-industrial-development/

Here's the damage report (the draft EA) IF you would like to see it. 15 million metric tons of emissions annually. 

https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/2001542/200383490/20028429/250...

Here's a pic inside the 5 Hole Arch Ned posted a month or so ago. They describe impacts to this spot and surrounding area in the EA.  Go to pp 45 and 49. Wells would be less than 2 miles away.

Nice spot for a 10 acre well pad, eh? Congressionally designated wilderness. Of course they say the lightning wouldn't affect the night sky. I watched the Hale-Bopp Comet from this area. 

The general area. Gives you an idea of how far and wide you can see. This wilderness area certainly doesn't need the noise or lights of a well project rushed through by Trump's people. 

As if a well two miles away would have no impact? 

Thanks for the help, Zoners. I heard over 5,000 comments were generated.  

Spring time update:

The BLM said go ahead, they drilled, and the well is....wait for it.....dry. 

In today's Salt Lake Tribune:

Was helium well in Utah wilderness a bust?

BLM says it came up dry, but the companies pursuing the potentially lucrative gas say they are still analyzing results.

By BRIAN MAFFLY | The Salt Lake Tribune

An exploratory well targeting a helium deposit under recently designated wilderness in Utah’s San Rafael Desert failed to produce the valuable gas and has been plugged, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Two Denver-based companies, Twin Bridges Resources and partner Aspect Energy, had made bold predictions in court filings that their proposed Bowknot wells in Emery County would produce vast amounts of helium, an inert gas essential for scientific research, medical procedures and many other high-tech applications.

But the project’s first well, tapping a state lease in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness near the Green River’s Bowknot Bend, was a dry hole, Chris Conrad, BLM’s Price field office manager, told the Emery County Public Lands Council earlier this month.

That report, however, might not mean the end of a project that triggered a lawsuit from environmentalists upset with the BLM for issuing leases in this area just as Congress was about to designate it as wilderness.

The companies “have federal leases,” Conrad told the council, “and they may choose to explore those.”

For their part, company representatives deny the Bowknot well was a dry hole.

“We are still in the process of analyzing the results,” Kirby Carroll, the environmental manager for Aspect Energy, wrote in an email.

Twin Bridges and Aspect formed a joint venture called Pure Helium LLC to develop Bowknot.

Carroll did not respond to emailed follow- up questions, and the companies’ next move remains unclear.

In court filings, project leaders said Pure Helium planned to spend $300,000 constructing the well pad and improving the access road. Drilling the first well would take 20 days and cost $1.3 million. Pure Helium was to spend another $1 million completing and testing the well to evaluate the gas it produces and the size of the reservoir.

“With this data, the company can establish long-term contracts,” Carroll wrote in a court declaration. “If well testing is successful, Pure Helium plans to continue the project, drilling up to six additional wells from the same well pad.”

Under a development plan approved by the BLM last year, Twin Bridges had expected to drill all seven wells horizontally from a single pad cleared out at the end of an existing road “cherry-stemmed” into the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness. The Bowknot site is subject to a seasonal drilling closure from March 1 through August to avoid disturbing rare Mexican spotted owls while they nest.

More...

The San Rafael Desert has seen extensive exploratory drilling for oil and gas through the years but has yet to see any production. According to BLM documents, 79 wells have been drilled here before 2016, all of them dry. Bowknot would be the 80th, said SUWA staff attorney Landon Newell.

While it was seeking permission to drill Bowknot last year, Pure Helium reported that the helium deposits here are unusually rich, nearly five times the 0.3% concentrations needed to be economically viable. In a court filing, Carroll said the Bowknot prospect could produce up to 500 million cubic feet a year, an amount that represents 8% of the current global production.

“A helium reservoir this size could meet domestic helium consumption for many years and reduce the country’s reliance on sensitive foreign sources of helium,” he wrote. Carroll predicted that an injunction against the project could cost the company more than $500 million, eliminate the possibility of dozens of high-paying jobs and nix state and federal royalties worth tens of millions of dollars.

SUWA argued these predictions were disconnected from reality.

“It turns out — unsurprisingly,” Newell said, “that Twin Bridges’ sales pitch was all sizzle, no steak.”

SITLA, though, is still holding out for some steak.

The agency, which administers 4 million acres of state-owned land and minerals for the benefit of Utah schools, is eager to see this area’s helium resources developed since it could generate a robust revenue stream.

The agency’s oil and gas director, Wes Adams, said he has not been informed that the Bowknot well was a dry hole. He cautioned that the plugging may just be temporary to secure the well until Twin Bridges can resume work in September.

SUWA lawyers counter that the well appears to be permanently retired. A recent photo indicates the drill stem has been cut off.

“The well has been plugged and abandoned, not shut-in. If it had been shut-in, there would be a high-pressure gauge and all the rest installed at the well,” Newell said. “Contrast that with the metal post hammered into the ground at the Twin Bridges well site that couldn’t hold back a strong gust of wind.”

Thanks again to everyone who tried to help stop this. 

Ned, I just turned down a May 8th trip down Labyrinth. Various factors. A hike up Twomile was in the plans. But I want to go sometime in May.  

Check out SUWA's website about BLM's road plan for that area. Over a thousand miles of new routes.  https://suwa.org/category/travel-management-plans/