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Show . WITH PROPER DEVELOPMENT WE U.S. WOULD BE ENERGY SELF SUFFICIENT i Distribution of Recoverable Fossil Fuels 4 i xUNITED STATES 33 II USSR s, OIL SHALE 1063 billion barrels 2 COAL 800b. barrels-equivalent --A CRUDE OIL 35b. barrels TAR SANDS 16b. barrels r South Ij j "Another V-merica fj a . VOPC n .CanadC1 " ; vvw Chlna 10 VEurope Middle 9 East v . 11 . 1 The Interior Colony: jC By Kenneth L. Gray, Ph.D. , Unless a- Bureau of Land Management employee is willing wil-ling to move frequently from j state to state and to Washington, Washing-ton, D.C., for advancements in pay and prestige, he is likely to be left behind on the promotion promo-tion ladder. On the other hand, 5 those who do not move frequently know the most 3 about specific environments. Thus, those who hold the j highest Interior Depaftment positions frequently know the least about the lands for which they are responsible. ' Even in the Bureau of Land ' "Management planning bran- ches, where one might expect to find personnel with extensive exten-sive knowledge of particular areas, the staff may be composed primarily of newcomers. new-comers. The Utah BLM chief of planning and two of his three assistants all moved to Utah in 1975. The future of the Kaiparo-wits Kaiparo-wits Project, considered to be one of the major resource development proposals in the history of the state, depends on Interior Department administrative admin-istrative decisions. Yet newcomers new-comers to Utah have primary responsibility for administering administer-ing the environmental analysis for this project. The Kaiparo-wits Kaiparo-wits research administrator moved to Utah for the first time in 1975, after the research had begun. Even after coming to Utah, he spent' ". nearly all his time in the Salt Lake City office, 300 miles from the proposed site. He was a career forester and gTazing administrator who had received several promotions by moving from state to state. In spite of his limited background, he was appointed to supervise research on such topics as air quality and coal mining procedures (to name but two of the areas totally unrelated to his training). Although approximately fifty researchers had been employed employ-ed to work on this project, several of whom were well acquainted with Utah, he requested and received the assistance of another forester from another state. The forester was flown in from his office in Denver at frequent intervals to rewrite some portions of the environmental environ-mental impact statement. This novice to the subjects being studied and non-resident of Utah was given the authority to distort the findings. If training in forestry anil air miles logged qualified one as a research administrator, the Bureau of Land Management would have a corner on the market. While environmental impact statements arc in preparation, a cadre of bureaucrats arc criss-crossing the country to review the documents. They attend meetings in various cities and round table discussions discus-sions ensue. At a typical Interior Department staff meeting held in Salt Lake City, about fifteen employees could be found endlessly debating such topics as the following: "If a mitigating measure is proposed by a developer, does it become part of the applicant's appli-cant's proposal and therefore belong in Chapter 1 of the environmental impact statement state-ment or is it a 'mitigating measure' for inclusion in Chapter 5?" Most of these format questions could be resolved in a few hours by a competent research administrator; adminis-trator; instead they are debated debat-ed for weeks by a room full of interior colonial agents. The wages and travel expenses for out-of-state personnel per-sonnel and for those attending from within the state for five two-day meetings totals an estimated $68,500; five or more such meetings are held for many environmental impact im-pact statements. If BLM spent similar amounts for all impact statements in production, the cost for these meetings for one year (1975) would be $5 million. For this $5 million water quality and air pollution control programs could be established. For this amount of money the environment could be significantly improved. im-proved. For this amount of money a park could be established near a major city each year. Before an environmental impact statement is of any value it must be used by the decision makers. However, if the massive size, lack of coordination, and lack of readability of these documents did not prevent their meaningful meaning-ful use, the organization of the Interior Department would. Officials in Washington, DC who have the ultimate decision making authority, do not have time to become acquainted with specific environments or to read massive environmental impact statements. Next to the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Interior is responsible for all land-use decisions for the public domain. He is responsible respons-ible lor the administration of 539,165,803 acres, which means he has more land-use authority than leaders of most nations throughout the world. The Secretary has the legal authority to direct affairs in his eleven agencies. , One agency, the Bureau of Land Management, had seventy sev-enty cnvrionniental impact statements in production in one year (1975). The Secretary's Secre-tary's major administrative duties and political obligations obviously leave his little time to study these volumes. It would require a herculean effort to acquire a superficial acquaintance with all the environmental impact statements state-ments in production, even if a person had nothing else to do. It is necessary (o go some distance down the hierarchy of Washington personnel before someone can be found who can answer questions about a specific area and a proposed development. Somewhere in the myriad of corridors in the Washinton offices an assistant to an assilaiK can be found who. is willing to pose as an "expert" on a given proposal. He may know less about the project than the average citizen from the area in question, but no one in the Washington office may be aware of his limited understanding under-standing (or care to admit it). His expertise may be based on the fact that he actually flew over the area in question and read the environmental impact statement all the way through. As BLM officials move from place to place, they remain relatively unknown to the people whose lives their decisions affect. This is contrary to the American concept of democracy which is aimed at insuring public accountability. When a "migrant "mi-grant manager" makes a serious blunder which brings excessive public resentment, he simply packs his bags and moves on to some other higher paying position with the Bureau of Land Management. (Copyright, Kenneth L. Gray, 1976) Next week's article, "The Golden Beaver," deals with the Bureau of Reclamation. for tests of the Paradox formation. In Grand County, a 9,500 foot Mississippian for- mation test well has been scheduled by Ladd Petroleum, Denver. It is the No. 1-27U-Federal sec. 27, T24S, R18E, 10 miles southeast of production produc-tion from Mississippian in Salt -Wash field. |