Sign Comment Letter-Whitewater - Citizens for a Healthy Community

Please check the box below if you agree to the following comments. A check in the box is required in order to submit the form to the BLM. *

Dear Ms. Stevens,

I am writing to you today because our air, water, and food is being threatened by the proposed 108-Well Fram Whitewater Master Development Plan right outside of Grand Junction and along the base of the Grand Mesa. This area is the primary watershed for the City of Grand Junction, providing pristine, fresh drinking water to over 60,000 people as well as irrigation water for local farmers and ranchers.

Fram Operating, LLC, proposes to build and operate 108 wells (utilizing horizontal drilling/fracking), with accompanying industrial facilities in the middle of a critical watershed, grazing allotments, and in between Horse Mountain and Grand Mesa Slopes, which are recognized by BLM as special management areas for big game hunting, biking, camping, wildlife viewing and quiet use recreation. The risks are simply too high.

I request that you conduct an Environmental Impact Statement to fully analyze the cumulative impacts and ramifications this project would have on the watershed, health and safety of animals and people, the local economy, and the climate. Climate change is already having an impact on us—affecting agriculture, wildlife, and the watershed. Increased methane emissions from this project will only exacerbate already troubling issues.

BLM and State bonding requirements are not adequate to ensure fiscal risk management in the event that the operator declares bankruptcy, sells off its assets, or defaults on its bond obligations. I insist that BLM consider the financial risks associated with Fram Exploration’s acknowledged financial difficulties to bondholders, especially when Fram’s secured convertible bonds are due on December 31, 2018 and these Fram Bonds are secured against Fram’s Whitewater assets.

Lastly, this project is being proposed in an area deemed by the BLM to be of “low development potential”. This EA is analyzing an exploratory action that is speculative in nature. Permitting speculative drilling operations in a low development potential area is an inappropriate use of public land, tying the land up in one use for years and thus removing it from other uses. This is damaging to taxpayers and public landowners who would like to see that land prioritized for other values.

If the BLM Grand Junction Office does not get this right, this could have a detrimental impact on Delta County especially when it comes time to expand development into the remainder of the Whitewater Unit Boundary and Delta County and the Uncompahgre Field Region, with a resource management plan currently undergoing revision.

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SIGN THIS LETTER TO PROTECT DELTA COUNTY

Tell BLM That A 108-Well Project Is Not Worth Risking Our Air, Water, and Public Lands.

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