By Tom Sluis
Durango Herald Staff Writer

Environmental groups have opposed Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s bill to designate 164,000 acres near Cortez as a National Conservation Area, saying the bill is short on details needed to adequately protect the area.

"It’s a pretty bare-bones bill. There isn’t much in the way of enhanced protection," said Mark Pearson, chairman of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club and the Colorado Environmental Coalition, an umbrella organization with 52 member groups, say the bill needs more detail on how oil and gas development, grazing and recreation would be managed, along with how undeveloped areas would be protected.

"It’s good in that the off-road vehicles would be controlled to a better degree, but other than that there would be no change in the existing management," Pearson said.

Campbell’s office did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Jeff Widen, associate director of the coalition, said the bill offers no statutory protection for archaeological sites overall or for two canyons within the 164,000 acres — Cross Canyon and Papoose Canyon — that are still in pristine condition.

"The bill only requires that BLM draft a management plan, which is something it already has, with no guidance on how resources are to be protected," Widen said.

Widen said the bill specifically says that the designation would not interfere with oil and gas development. He said current leases should be grandfathered in, but future exploration should be banned.

Otherwise, "It’s like an open door to the oil and gas industry," he said.

The groups say the advisory council set up under Campbell’s bill, the Canyons of the Ancients National Conservation Act, also needs more specific authority.

"It is a large citizens committee, but the bill has no explanation of who they will be, how they will be selected and if the committee will represent a diverse cross-section of interests," Pearson said.

Widen said that without such designations, the committee could become dominated by the oil and gas industry.

Both Pearson and Widen called for Congress to designate 30,000 acres about 20 percent of the area as wilderness.

"That would insure some higher level of protection for at least some parts within the national conservation-area boundaries," Pearson said.

Under a wilderness designation, pre-existing drilling and grazing is allowed. Widen said 95 percent of the proposed wilderness area already classified a wilderness study area is already covered by oil and gas leases.

Campbell introduced the bill Feb. 3 in response to pressure from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who said if the Colorado delegation did not offer protection for the area through a national conservation area, he would ask President Clinton to designate the area as a national monument under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

A national monument is made by presidential decree. A national conservation area is enacted by Congress. Local residents of the area want additional protection for the archaeological sites, but are overwhelmingly opposed to a national monument, largely over concerns that the public would be excluded from the decision-making process.

Residents also didn’t look forward to the increased tourism a national monument designation would bring.

Widen said the wilderness designation of the canyons would be the best compromise between a monument designation and conservation area.

"We respect the county commissioners concerns over the increase in tourism from a national monument designation, and we are willing to support them in a national conservation area if about 20 percent is designated as wilderness," Widen said.

The land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It has nearly 29,000 sites covering the past 12,000 years. It is also home to enormous carbon dioxide reserves, which are extracted through 61 wells by Shell Oil Co.