A decadeslong fight to halt extractive industry in the Thompson Divide won a decisive victory Wednesday as the Biden administration removed nearly a quarter-million acres of federal land across three Colorado counties from mining and energy development for the next two decades.
The 20-year withdrawal of 221,898 acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in the Thompson Divide from south of Glenwood Springs to Crested Butte is part of a promise made by President Joe Biden when he designated the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument on Tennessee Pass in 2022.
Environmental, ranching and recreational groups have spent several decades working to protect the Thompson Divide, which offers a critical migration corridor to wildlife and ranks as one of the most important, unbroken ecosystems in Colorado.
“This is part of a continuous drumbeat from a community that is absolutely unified around protection of this special place,” said Peter Hart, the attorney for the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, which has led the battle to protect the Thompson Divide.
Over in Crested Butte, the mineral withdrawal marks the biggest victory in a nearly 50-year battle to block molybdenum mining on Mount Emmons, the 12,932-foot peak the locals call the Red Lady.
“This is a huge step towards a Red Lady that is forever mine free,” said Julie Nania, the head of the Red Lady fight for the High Country Conservation Advocates group, which has worked to stop molybdenum mining since the 1970s.
But the 20-year withdrawal is just a step. Advocates for the Thompson Divide want a permanent plan that will forever remove mining, oil and gas drilling and extractive industry from the region. Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in a statement cheered the mineral withdrawal but urged his fellow lawmakers to pass his Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act “to make this withdrawal permanent and protect this land for the next generation and generations to come.”
The withdrawal does not affect existing leases in the Thompson Divide, which include 11 leases for Wolf Creek Storage Field in the White River National Forest in the Roaring Fork Valley that allows Black Hills Energy to store pressurized natural gas in an underground storage facility first drilled in the 1960s. In the past 20 years, there have been three wells drilled in the Thompson Divide, all part of the Wolf Creek Storage Field project.
The withdrawal also does not change another 11 existing oil and gas leases in the Thompson Divide, which, including the 11 Wolf Creek facility leases, account for 23,900 acres. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management’s 2023 Environmental Assessment of the withdrawal estimated the removal of new mineral and energy leases in the Thompson Divide would prevent the development of about eight new wells over the next 20 years, blocking the creation of two new jobs a year in Garfield, Gunnison and Pitkin counties.
The Forest Service’s study of the withdrawal concluded that development of the molybdenum deposit on Mount Emmons was unlikely in the next 20 years. It also noted that two natural gas wells drilled by Gunnison Energy LLC — one of which is shut-in and the other abandoned and not producing since 2007 — are capable of production and that capability would be curtailed under the withdrawal.
Last year Gunnison Energy sued the Bureau of Land Management over its court-ordered re-launch of an environmental review that permitted the company to drill 35 fracked gas wells from five pads across 30,000 acres of federal land in the North Fork Valley. A few Gunnison Energy leases overlap the withdrawal area but they would count as existing permits under the withdrawal decision.
Gunnison Energy sent a letter to federal land managers opposing the withdrawal proposal, saying that while the federal assessment of the plan “makes numerous assertions about the qualitative benefits withdrawal might have on various environmental and socioeconomic resources, it entirely omits any evaluation of the qualitative benefits associated with energy development.”
In a statement included with Bennet’s announcement of the withdrawal, Gunnison Energy Director Brad Robinson said the company supported the designation after working with Bennet’s office and the Thompson Divide Coalition on new boundaries that excluded certain areas with valid operating rights.
Kathleen Sgamma, the head of the Western Energy Alliance trade group representing oil and gas companies in nine states, said most oil and gas companies abandoned the Thompson Divide years ago when the Forest Service halted leasing in the region in 2015 and 2016.
“But this is just another way the Biden administration is making it more difficult to produce on federal lands,” Sgamma said.
The Forest Service review of the withdrawal showed 15,540 jobs connected to travel and tourism in the four counties and 1,381 jobs connected to mining. The agency’s environmental review noted that the population in the four counties is expected to grow by 24% over the 20-year withdrawal, which will increase demand for recreation and tourism.
The agency noted that recreation-based spending by visitors to the Thompson Divide was $12.3 million in 2023. The area has seven campgrounds, 22 trailheads, about 140 miles of nonmotorized trails and 66 miles of motorized trails. The Thompson Divide includes 20 roadless areas covering 56,443 acres in the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison and White River national forests. The overall impact of recreation-based spending in the Thompson Divide is close to $30 million a year, much of that coming from hunters who secure more than 20,000 big-game licenses for the region every season.
The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management fielded 60,000 comments on the withdrawal since 2022, most of them supporting the plan. The assessment of the withdrawal noted “several comments” opposing the proposal.
Hart and Nania said the decision Wednesday marks a pivotal moment in the transition from traditional extractive uses of public land toward conservation, wildlife and recreation.
Multiple-use policies at the Forest Service and BLM have long prioritized use by energy and mining companies, Hart said. The mineral withdrawal in the Thompson Divide shows that arguments supporting a new economy with less emphasis on mining and oil and gas and more focus on recreational access to public lands are finally finding footing in the Forest Service and BLM, Hart said.
“People really care about these places and these places drive local economies and our land managers are recognizing and responding to that,” Hart said. “They are asking ‘How do we protect the golden egg?’ I think this is part of a larger shift that is happening across all our public lands.”