In 1996, the Forest Service described the 1.8 million acre Rio
Grande National Forest, which rings the San Luis Valley in
southern Colorado, as "large … and … essentially undeveloped."
The agency expected things to stay that way, at least as far as
petroleum extraction was concerned. An analysis of the
management plan the Forest adopted that year concluded
"development of oil and gas is not likely" by 2011. And for the
dozen years since that analysis, not a single acre of the Rio
Grande NF was leased for oil development. That’s about to
change. On May 8, the Bureau of Land Management (which manages
federally-owned minerals) will put up for bid 144,000 acres of
the Forest for oil and gas drilling. That’s more than 225 square
miles, or about half the size of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Areas to be leased to industry include tens of thousands of
acres of roadless lands, deer and elk winter range, lynx
habitat, watersheds of the Rio Grande a few miles upstream from
two national wildlife refuges and agricultural