ENVIRONMENT: Clinton Accused of Back-tracking in Utah

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 14 1997 (IPS) - Environmental groups are protesting against a federal; government decision to allow oil drilling in a newly created national park among the red-rock cliffs and canyons of the Utah desert.

President Bill Clinton created the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante park, amid much fanfare last year – just seven weeks before his re-election to the White House. The decision prevented the Dutch company Andalex Resources from mining for coal on the Kaiparowits plateau.

At the time, environmentalists hailed the move but it was condemned by residents of the area who were hoping that the coal mine would bring jobs. Local counties accused the federal government of playing politics and sued to stop the creation of the park.

This week the Clinton administration decided to allow Conoco, a subsidiary of Dupont, a Delaware-based multinational, to explore for oil in the same area based on the fact that the company has owned mineral exploration licenses in the area for over a decade.

Now its the envbironmentalists who are condemning Clinton’s decisions in utah.

“This unfortunately demonstrates that Clinton and Gore are election-year environmentalists. One month before the presidential vote, they want to protect the monument. Now, they hand the keys to Conoco,” says Scott Groene, spokesman for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

SUWA, the Wilderness Society and the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) have decided to appeal the decision which has also been questioned by some government agencies.

“We do not see the urgency in approving exploratory drilling within the newly created national monument and recommend that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) hold current leases in abeyance until a comprehensive management plan is developed,” wrote Reed Harris, the Utah supervisor for the federal Wildlife Service in June.

The BLM is currently working on such a management plan but the process is expected to take three years and agency officials say that they are now satisfied that Conoco’s drilling plans will not cause significant impacts.

“My decision insured the continued protection of this magnificent national monument while at the same time honoring the commitment made by the President in his proclamation to recognise valid existing rights,” says Bill Lamb, the Utah director of the BLM.

Conoco defends its plan to drill for oil saying that the current drill site covers just two acres of land which will be hidden from park visitors. The company also points out that the project will generate 864 million dollars in revenues for the federal government, 313 million dollars for the state, 94 million dollars for the county and 33 million dollars for local schools.

“If we felt that our operations could not be conducted without jeopardising the historic and scientific interests in the area, we would have stopped pursuing our exploration plans,” says a company statement.

Conoco, like many other oil companies, has a track record of jeopardising the local environment. For example in 1987 a major leak of hydrofluoric acid at its facilities in Texas City, Texas, caused 1,000 people to be treated for chemical burns and respiratory problems.

Dupont, the parent company of Conoco, also has a history of problems. In 1994 Dupont topped the list of the Toxics Releases Inventory with 70 polluting sites around this country.

At the negotiating table Conoco has clashed often with politicians and environmental groups and, some two years ago, the company was forced to cancel a multi-billion dollar deal which would have violated a federal ban on contracts with the Iranian government.

Conoco came under fire in Ecuador about six years ago when it gave 10 million dollars to an Ecuadorian foundation set up by NRDC and Cultural Survival. In return the environmental groups blessed company plans to drill for oil on the homelands of the Huaorani native peoples and in Yasuni national park.

The ensuing uproar from local indigenous groups caused the company to back out of the oil drilling scheme and sell its stake to Maxus, an Argentine-owned company.

It remains to be seen if similar bad publicity in this country will cause the company to withdraw its claim as it did in Ecuador. Already environmental protests over the Utah project have made the front page of the New York Times, one of the most influential papers in this country.

Either way the Utah battle has added to the list of places in this country where environmental groups are fighting to prevent oil exploration in sensitive areas.

In Alaska last month Greenpeace activists on board the Arctic Sunrise ship blocked an Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) rig off the coast to keep it away from an oilfield in the Beaufort Sea because of the threat to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine area onshore that is a proected area. And in Florida the state government has backed environmentalists concerns over a Coastal Petroleum plan to drill for oil near St. George island in the Gulf of Mexico.

Last week, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles told the company that it would have to provide a 4.2 billion dollar insurance bond against the possible costs of clean-up in case of an environmental disaster.