ParkService - BLM Catfight Erupts Over Oil & Gas Lease Sales Next To Arches, Canyonlands NP - SLT

A high-level fight has erupted within the Interior Department between the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service over plans to sell leases for oil and gas drilling near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument.

The Park Service wants to delay the Dec. 19 lease sales. The BLM has refused to do so. "We're not anti-oil and -gas but we're very much pro-park," said Denver-based Park Service Regional Director Mike Snyder. "I'm not saying not to put those up for a lease sale. I'm just asking they wait until the next quarter."

Snyder said the Park Service needs more time and more information from the BLM about the sale, which involves nearly 360,000 acres of federal land in Utah, to fulfill its responsibility as protector of the parks.

Park officials worry that drilling could harm the air, water, wildlife and serenity in the parks. But when Snyder called Utah's BLM director, Selma Sierra, about an hour before the Election Day lease-sale announcement to request that the parcels near the parks be withdrawn, she refused, he said. The BLM said Friday that the Park Service has been a full participant in developing long-range land-use plans during the past seven years and stressed that the agency had modified or improved environmental constraints.

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http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10939844