CaseStudy:West Tavaputs Full Field Gas and Oil Development

The Bureau of Land Management concluded Section 106 consultation for the proposed undertaking on the West Tavaputs Plateau for 800 additional natural gas wells to be developed on the central Utah plateau. The Section 106 issues focused on how dust and potentially damaging chemicals from increased truck traffic would impact prehistoric petroglyphs and archaeological sites in Nine Mile Canyon. The Programmatic Agreement signing celebration occurred January 5, 2010, in the Utah state capitol.

Details
There are already 100 natural gas wells in production on the central Utah plateau. The recently concluded Section 106 consultation considered development of 800 additional natural gas wells. The Section 106 issues focused on how dust and potentially damaging chemicals from increased truck traffic on unimproved haul roads that serve as the entryway into the gas fields would impact prehistoric petroglyphs and archaeological sites in Nine Mile Canyon. The conclusions were documented in a Programmatic Agreement (PA), which spells out the provisions for how dust will be managed and when additional consultations will take place.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, ACHP Executive Director John M. Fowler, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) State Director Selma Sierra participated in the celebratory signing of the PA. Herbert complimented the organizations and agencies involved with the consultation who stepped forward to “be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.” Fowler thanked BLM for bringing a great amount of staff time and effort to ensure all parties were heard and their ideas incorporated. He went on to thank the Utah State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for its dedicated involvement in making the consultation successful. Other signatories included the SHPO, State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, Carbon County Commission, Duchesne County Commission, and Bill Barrett Corporation (project proponent).

Concurring parties who signed included the State of Utah Public Lands Policy Coordination Office, National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, Barrier Canyon Style Project, Utah Rock Art Research Association, Colorado Plateau Archaeology Alliance, Utah Professional Archaeological Council, Utah Statewide Archaeological Society, and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The BLM also conducted government-to-government consultations with the Navajo Nation, Hopi Indian Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, and Southern Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

The ACHP became involved in the project in September 2008 at the request of the NTHP and the Hopi Indian Tribe. At that point the BLM had been consulting with the SHPO and interested Indian tribes for more than five years. Other consulting parties were invited to join the consultation in January 2009. From the first meeting of consulting parties in February 2009 until the agreement was finalized in November 2009, the input of the tribes and consulting parties enhanced BLM’s ability to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse effects to the internationally renowned historic properties in Nine Mile Canyon.