Environmental groups protest drilling bid

     Associated Press
      SALT LAKE CITY -- A year after claiming a major victory in the fight over control of Utah's red rock desert, environmentalists now fear their prized Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is headed for trouble.
      On Monday, the Clinton administration approved a request to drill an exploratory oil and gas well within the 1.7 million-acre monument, which the president created a year ago this month as an election-year move to secure the environmental vote.
      "What a difference a year makes," said Pamela Eaton, regional director of The Wilderness Society in Denver. "Last September 18 we were celebrating a visionary step to protect one of our great natural treasures, and today we are watching a myopic retreat."
      But the Bureau of Land Management, which approved the drilling permit for Conoco Inc., spent much of Tuesday defending its decision and denying claims it has invited industry to exploit the Southern Utah monument.
      "This does not set a precedent at all," said BLM spokesman Don Banks. "We are looking at a single well near a well-established road and in an area that was previously disturbed. So we decided they can have that one well."
      Conoco, which owns 111 federal and state leases within the monument's boundaries, has applied to drill on five federal leases. The BLM decided to put off ruling on the four other requests.
      Such a delay was what environmentalists and two other federal agencies were hoping the BLM would apply to all of Conoco's applications.
      The decision to let Conoco drill in the Reese Canyon area comes shortly after the BLM launched a three-year program of studying resources in the monument and gathering public input before drafting a management plan.
      The planning process has been closely watched by supporters and opponents as a test to see how the BLM would handle its first national monument.
      At a public meeting last week in Las Vegas to develop plans for managing the monument, several participants said the area should not be open to drilling. The monument is a five-hour drive northeast of Southern Nevada.
      Until Clinton used his presidential powers to unilaterally create the monument, the region was a focal point in the ongoing debate over how much BLM land in the state should be designated as federally protected wilderness.
      "There was concern about whether the BLM was up to managing the monument and those fears have been realized," said Scott Groene, spokesman for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
      Opponents of the Conoco application, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service, urged the BLM to wait until the management plan was completed and then examine oil and gas exploration throughout the monument.
      But environmentalists aren't going to wait to see if Conoco strikes it rich.
      Groene said his group along with The Wilderness Society and several other environmental organizations plan to file an appeal this week with the federal Interior Board of Land Appeals, seeking to reverse the decision.
      As for the EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service, officials at both agencies said they could only offer advice to the BLM and have no recourse if they feel that advice was ignored.
      But the issue won't be dropped, either.
      "There are meetings and discussions that will go on where people involved in this will discuss this," said Mike Strieby, environmental review coordinator with the EPA in Denver. "There are a lot of people up and down the management chain that have been briefed on this."