Land Use Planning and Oil and Gas Leasing on Onshore Federal Lands (1989) / Chapter Skim
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5 Land Use Planning for Oil and Gas
5 Land Use Planning for Oil and Gas
Pages 54-86
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From page 54... ...
An additional problem is posed by the more than 80,000 oil and gas leases now in force on the federal lands, many of which were issued before leasing was given the level of attention in land use plans or NEPA documents that it receives today. The existing lessees may have property rights that cannot be extinguished without just compensation.
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From page 55... ...
Federal planning in relation to oil and gas development can obviously be affected by the existence of these socalled split estates, because of the diminished agency control they entail. The committee has not devoted special attention to this issue, except to note its existence.
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From page 56... ...
They have also recognized court decisions requiring that more site-specific impacts, as well as cumulative impacts, of oil and gas development be evaluated prior to the issuance of leases, unless the leases reserve authority in the agency to make later separate discretionary decisions to authorize activities on leases (see Chapter 4~. Both agencies have also attempted to use some type of staged or segmented analysis of environmental impacts to compensate for the limited information available at the planning stage about the extent to which areas to be leased will be explored and developed.
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From page 57... ...
Figure 5.1 shows steps in the planning process for a typical RMP. Before enactment of the 1987 Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act (101 Stat.
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From page 58... ...
and the 1976 National Forest Management Act provide guidelines that require planning at three administrative levels: national, regional, and individual forest, where, in an iterative process, each level provides inputs for the others. At the national level, every 10 years the Forest Service prepares an "assessment" of the forest and rangeland situation.
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From page 59... ...
'! On January 23, 1989, the Forest Service proposed rules by which it would implement the statutory responsibilities for management of oil and gas leasing and attendant surface-disturbing activities conducted on National Forest lands (54 Fed.
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From page 60... ...
Wilderness 1 Devel op Al tern atives formulation, effects, evaluation Decide on Solution Proposed Plan and Draft EIS ~ , Final Plan and Final ENS Record of Decision Manage the Program in-.p~emen tation, mon itoring anc evalu ation, amenomen ts and revisions 90- day Public Review and Comment FIGURE 5.2 Forest Senace resource management planning process. SOURCE: Courted of Forest Service.
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From page 61... ...
OPERATOR COMPLETES RECLAMATION 14. BLM RELEASES BOND FIGURE 5.3 Proposed Forest Service oil and gas leasing and operations process.
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From page 62... ...
STATUS OF LAND USE PI^NS Both the Forest Service and the BLM are still preparing some of the first round of land use plans under NFMA and FLPMN The last 38 National Forest plans are scheduled for completion in 1989, all but two of them for National Forests in the West Coast states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska (Forest Service, 1989c)
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From page 63... ...
A seismic survey will typically require a field crew to occupy the land surface along a series of survey lines for a period of days or weeks. Seismic reflection surveys provide an acoustical cross section of the earth that resembles a geologic cross section.
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From page 64... ...
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From page 65... ...
Issues concerning environmental impacts tend to revolve around these concerns. The following three cases with which the committee is familiar show the problems raised by uncertainties concerning oil and gas values, especially in areas with no previous history of oil and gas development.
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From page 66... ...
Leasing on several National Forests has been delayed due to concerns about insufficient NEPA documentation arising from the court decisions discussed in Chapter 4. Both agencies have reacted to requests for leasing at various stages in the land use planning process and with various levels of information and analysis on oil and gas resources.
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From page 67... ...
Two BLM plans were reviewed: the 1983 RMP and EIS for the Headwaters Resource Area, which stretches along the east side of the Rocly Mountain Front in Montana; and the 1988 RMP and EIS for the West HiLine area, a recent state-of-theart plan that covers north-central Montana, east of the Rocky Mountain Front and south from the Canadian border to the Missouri River. Ho Forest Sentence plans were reviewed: the plan and EIS for the Lewis and Clark National Forest, which stretches along the Rocly Mountains south of Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana; and a draft of the final plan and EIS for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the other state-of-theart plan, which covers portions of the mountainous and forested area south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in west-central Wyoming.
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From page 68... ...
Four alternative sets of land uses were considered in developing the plan and, in each of them, about 30 percent of the area was assigned standard stipulations. But the alternatives varied widely in the proposed use of other areas for oil and gas leasing and in the proposed use of other stipulations.
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From page 69... ...
In the reasonably foreseeable development scenario, the plan notes the difficulty of assessing the impacts of oil and gas development on the local economy "because of the uncertainty of the extent or spatial distribution of potential oil and activities." It further suggests that the regional economic impacts are likely to be greater than local impacts because expenditures
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From page 70... ...
Oil and gas development receives only passing mention in the list of 14 issues in the Lewis and Clark Forest Plan (Forest Service, 1984) , although over 400,000 acres was under oil and gas lease when the plan was written and another 130,000 acres had pending lease applications.
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From page 71... ...
Planning for oil and gas development in the Lewis and Clark plan is not as detailed as in the Deep Creek and geophysical exploration environmental assessments that preceded it. The plan notes that there are differences between the impacts of exploration and those of development, but does not identify the differences and carries this discussion no further.
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From page 72... ...
The Bridger-Teton plan has a more detailed evaluation of potential oil and gas development scenarios than the other plans we reviewed (Forest Service, 1989a, pp.
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From page 73... ...
It contends, among other things, that the access provided by oil and gas development is likelier to have impacts that extend beyond the life of the producing field. The analysis of impacts in the Bridger-Teton draft final plan is organized around seven "human resource units," areas roughly along county lines that have "unique patterns of lifestyles, economic conditions, and geography." The modestly detailed description of each unit includes the role oil and gas exploration and development has played -up to the present.
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From page 74... ...
UNSUITABILITY In its proposed regulations implementing its authority in the Reform Act to not approve oil and gas lease sales on National Forest lands, the Forest Service proposed to review those National Forest lands that have potential for oil and gas leasing to determine whether they are "suitable [or unsuitable] for leasing" (proposed 36 CFR 228.102; 54 Fede Reg.
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From page 75... ...
In an unusual agency undertaking, before presenting the surface coal mining unsuitability review process in proposed regulations in 1979, the BLM field tested 24 draft unsuitability criteria over a four-month
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From page 76... ...
Despite their similar origins, and their similar purpose as a screening mechanism early in the land use process, the surface coal mining and timber production unsuitability reviews have significant differences. The coal unsuitability criteria are set forth fully in rules; the timber unsuitability criteria are published fully only in the Forest Service handbook, an internal document not subject to public participation.
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From page 77... ...
; lands "incapable of producing industrial wood," including tree species not likely to be utilized within the next 10 years; · lands that are "physically [unisuitable forest land" because technology is unavailable to ensure timber production '~without irreversible resource damage to soils productivity or watershed conditions"; · lands that are "physically [unisuitable forest lands" because adequate restocking is unlikely to occur within 5 years; and · lands for which "there is not adequate information available, based on current research and experience, to project responses to timber management practices," with particular reference to lands classified as incapable of producing 20 cubic feet per acre per year (see Forest Service, 1989b, Chapter 20~. The committee notes that many incipient unsuitability criteria for onshore oil and gas leasing are already in place in one form or another.
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From page 78... ...
13rpes of impacts on wildlife from oil and gas activities include displacement of wildlife from critical winter range; · disturbance of wildlife by people, equipment, or facilities, particularly during breeding, birthing, or other critical times of the year; · damage to aquatic systems, including riparian areas, from spill of salt water or other contaminants, sedimentation, and direct impacts of construction on streams and adjacent riparian areas, including loss of vegetation; · impacts on important wildlife habitats and activities from the construction and maintenance of access roads, pipelines, and other facilities required to support the oil and gas exploration and development; intensive human activity from oil and gas operations, including maintenance activities that require daily access to work areas and unrelated public use of roads and adjacent areas, with possible increases in poaching; · modification or loss of small but irreplaceable habitat for threatened or endangered species.
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From page 79... ...
There have been a few studies of the impacts of oil and gas development on fish and wildlife, such as fish losses from oil or saltwater spills and increased sedimentation, and disturbance of critical wildlife habitat due to oil and gas development. A realistic evaluation of the probable future impact on fish and wildlife from development of a proposed lease requires access to substantial information on the specific fish and wildlife species in the area, their important habitats, and some understanding of the extent and nature of development that may take place, including associated roads, pipelines, and support facilities.
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From page 80... ...
It has also helped in directing the use of environmental quality controls for oil and gas development on federal lands. Nevertheless, there are limitations to the planning process and in the information that is available for planning decisions.
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From page 81... ...
Such averages can only give some sense of relative aggregated values of alternative land allocations. Oil and gas, if they are available in producible quantities on the Bridger-Teton, will generally have higher dollar values than the surface resources and uses with which they compete.
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From page 82... ...
Role of Values in Planning for Oil and Gas Development Most of the conflicts over oil and gas leasing and development involve disagreements over the value to be assigned to alternative land uses between parties who assign different values to land. Land, including the animals, plants, and other objects attached to it, takes on importance to people because of the satisfaction it provides.
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From page 83... ...
Nevertheless, other kinds of information are also frequently lacking. How oil and gas development affects wildlife behavior is especially important.
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From page 84... ...
The many requirements placed on the agencies in preparing land use plans, as well as the tendency to focus on timber, grazing, and other surface resource issues, often obscure important oil and gas exploration and development issues. The scenarios used to describe reasonably foreseeable oil and gas development in the West HiLine (BLM)
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From page 85... ...
All of the plans reviewed by the committee contained analyses of the social, economic, and environmental consequences of oil and gas development, although, as described earlier, the analyses were Epically limited by the lack of sitespecific information on possible oil and gas exploration and development. These plans also identified protective stipulations that would be used and where they would be applied.
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From page 86... ...
1989. State and Federal Guidelines for Protecting Fish and Wildlife Resources in Areas Of Oil and Gas Development.
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