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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Shale We Not?
Big Oil has another dirty fuel on the front burner. But a coalition of conservation groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, is trying to keep the pot from boiling over.
The coalition headed to the U.S. District Court for Colorado in January to challenge an 11th-hour decision by the Bush administration to allow and encourage wide-scale development of public land containing oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
The Interior Department opened up nearly two million acres of public land to oil-shale leasing last November even though the land is home to 32 species that are either protected under the Endangered Species Act or are candidates for listing.
"Oil shale threatens to destroy wildlife and fish habitat and poison our air and water," says Sierra Weaver, an attorney for Defenders. "We should be developing an energy policy based on sound science, not fast-tracking the use of a fossil fuel with no future."
Oil shale is one of the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. The energy required to process solid rock into liquid fuel produces massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and would require the building of as many as 10 new coal-fired power plants in the West. Newly appointed Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar was an opponent of oil shale development when he was a senator from Colorado and has signaled that he will slow down and reconsider the Bush administration's rush for development. "We hope that this will be the case," says Weaver.
