Stop oil and gas drilling beneath Ouray National Wildlife Refuge
Notice of Intent To Amend the Vernal Resource Management Plan for Oil and Gas Leasing and Prepare an Associated Environmental Assessment, Utah
Bureau of Land Management· Ouray National Wildlife RefugeFederal Register 2026-18054 ↗
The groups on this fight
4 groups work Utah
By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition
Works Utah: the five-Tribe coalition that petitioned for the monument and shared in managing it until the July 2026 proclamation disbanded the Bears Ears Commission.
- Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
Works Utah: the monument’s friends group: science, stewardship, and the legal fight over its boundaries.
- Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
Works Utah: sued BLM in August 2024 to void 51 reaffirmed oil and gas leases in the San Rafael Desert, including one in the heart of the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness carved by the Green River..
- Utah Diné Bikéyah
Works Utah: the Native-led nonprofit whose cultural mapping work built the original monument proposal.
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
BLM wants to open federal minerals under a national wildlife refuge to oil and gas leasing.
What’s at risk
The Ouray National Wildlife Refuge in Utah could face subsurface oil and gas development through directional drilling from outside the refuge boundary. Wildlife habitat and refuge integrity are at risk from industrial energy extraction beneath protected lands.
If this goes through
If approved, the Vernal Resource Management Plan would be permanently amended to allow oil and gas leasing under the refuge, setting a precedent for subsurface drilling beneath national wildlife refuge lands.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
10 holes in the agency’s own analysis
Make these points, in your own words
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- The agency justifies the need for action partly on 'external interest in leasing' without disclosing who submitted that interest, how many acres are sought, or whether that interest meets any threshold for triggering a plan amendment. A need statement driven by undisclosed private interest, with no public record of what was requested, cannot be evaluated by the public during the 30-day scoping window. The agency should disclose the identity of the applicant(s), the acreage nominated, and any lease applications received, so the public can assess whether the stated need is sufficient to justify amending the existing RMP closure.
- The notice explicitly excludes Areas of Critical Environmental Concern evaluation from the planning scope, stating the BLM 'is not considering ACEC nominations as part of this process,' yet the planning area sits entirely within the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, a unit created specifically to protect wildlife habitat. Excluding ACEC consideration without explanation or legal justification removes a standard FLPMA protective tool from the analysis before the EA is even written. The agency should explain on the record why ACEC evaluation is inappropriate here, or include it in the EA's alternatives analysis.
- The notice proposes only two preliminary alternatives: No Action and a single Proposed Action with a no surface occupancy stipulation. NEPA requires a reasonable range of alternatives, yet no intermediate options are identified, such as leasing with enhanced monitoring requirements, partial acreage leasing, or a phased approach tied to USFWS compatibility determinations. Offering only two binary alternatives at the scoping stage effectively forecloses the development of a genuine range of alternatives before public input is collected. The agency should develop and analyze at least one additional alternative that includes different stipulation packages or acreage configurations.
- The notice states the planning area encompasses 'less than 5,200 acres of federal minerals' managed by BLM while the surface is managed by USFWS as part of the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, yet the notice provides no discussion of whether USFWS has made or will make a compatibility determination under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act before or concurrent with the EA. Without a USFWS compatibility finding, BLM's EA would be analyzing leasing that may be legally unavailable. The agency should disclose the current status of any USFWS compatibility review and confirm that finding will be completed before or concurrent with the RMPA decision.
Show all 12 points from the document
- The 30-day scoping period closes October 5, 2026, and the notice states the public meeting date 'will be announced at least 15 days in advance.' With a 30-day window, a meeting announced on day 15 would leave as little as 15 days for the public to digest meeting information and submit comments. For a proposal affecting a National Wildlife Refuge with complex subsurface geology and directional drilling implications, 30 days is inadequate. The agency should extend the scoping period to at least 60 days and announce the public meeting date at the same time as the notice so affected communities have full opportunity to participate.
- The interdisciplinary team listed in the notice includes specialists in air quality, water quality, minerals and geology, wildlife and fisheries, and economics, but omits cultural resources, paleontology, and soils, disciplines directly relevant to a refuge underlain by federal minerals in the Uinta Basin, a region with known tribal cultural sites and significant paleontological resources. The absence of these specialists from the listed team signals gaps in the forthcoming EA's resource coverage. The agency should add cultural resources, paleontology, and soils specialists to the interdisciplinary team before analysis begins.
- The notice states the seven preliminary issues identified for analysis are available only on the project website, not in the Federal Register notice itself. Members of the public without internet access, or those in rural areas with limited connectivity near the Vernal Field Office, cannot review the planning criteria or preliminary issues without visiting a separate online platform. Restricting access to planning criteria to a website during a 30-day scoping period disadvantages those most likely to be locally affected. The agency should publish the seven preliminary issues and planning criteria in full in the Federal Register notice or mail them on request at no cost.
- The notice states the EA will rely on 'modern drilling technology' as a basis for reconsidering the existing RMP closure, but provides no description of what technologies are being assumed, what setback distances from the refuge boundary are being considered, or what blowout or spill scenarios will be modeled. Because the entire proposed action depends on directional or horizontal drilling from outside the refuge, the specific technological assumptions are central to the effects analysis. The agency should disclose in the scoping record the drilling technology parameters being assumed and commit to analyzing worst-case subsurface failure scenarios within the EA.
- The notice says the BLM will consult with Indian Tribal Nations on a government-to-government basis but places that consultation within the same 30-day scoping window available to the general public, with no indication that pre-scoping government-to-government consultation has occurred or is separately scheduled. Meaningful government-to-government consultation cannot be compressed into a general public comment period. The agency should confirm whether pre-scoping tribal consultation has already occurred, disclose which tribes were contacted, and provide a separate consultation timeline that is not bounded by the 30-day scoping deadline.
- The notice frames the proposed action as opening minerals to leasing 'subject to a no surface occupancy stipulation' and states lease development would occur through directional drilling from pads outside the refuge boundary, but provides no analysis of where those surface pads would be located, what lands would be affected outside the refuge, or whether those off-refuge locations have their own resource conflicts. The EA as scoped could approve subsurface leasing while leaving all surface impact analysis to a later APD stage, effectively deferring the core environmental analysis. The agency should commit in the scoping record to analyzing reasonably foreseeable off-refuge pad locations and their impacts within the EA, not at the APD stage.
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Utah State Director intends to prepare a Resource Management Plan Amendment (RMPA) with an associated Environmental Assessment (EA) to consider opening the federal minerals beneath the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, subject to a no surface occupancy stipulation, and by this notice is announcing the beginning of the scoping period to solicit public comments and identify issues and is providing the…
Did the agency answer?
12 issues are on this record. The agency has not published its decision document yet, so each one stays pending until the agency answers.
Issues on the record, awaiting the decision
- PendingThe notice explicitly excludes Areas of Critical Environmental Concern evaluation from the planning scope, stating the BLM 'is not considering ACEC nominations as part of this process,' yet the planni
The notice explicitly excludes Areas of Critical Environmental Concern evaluation from the planning scope, stating the BLM 'is not considering ACEC nominations as part of this process,' yet the planning area sits entirely within the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, a unit created specifically to protect wildlife habitat. Excluding ACEC consideration without explanation or legal justification removes a standard FLPMA protective tool from the analysis before the EA is even written. The agency should explain on the record why ACEC evaluation is inappropriate here, or include it in the EA's alternatives analysis.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe notice says the BLM will consult with Indian Tribal Nations on a government-to-government basis but places that consultation within the same 30-day scoping window available to the general public,
The notice says the BLM will consult with Indian Tribal Nations on a government-to-government basis but places that consultation within the same 30-day scoping window available to the general public, with no indication that pre-scoping government-to-government consultation has occurred or is separately scheduled. Meaningful government-to-government consultation cannot be compressed into a general public comment period. The agency should confirm whether pre-scoping tribal consultation has already occurred, disclose which tribes were contacted, and provide a separate consultation timeline that is not bounded by the 30-day scoping deadline.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe interdisciplinary team listed in the notice includes specialists in air quality, water quality, minerals and geology, wildlife and fisheries, and economics, but omits cultural resources, paleontol
The interdisciplinary team listed in the notice includes specialists in air quality, water quality, minerals and geology, wildlife and fisheries, and economics, but omits cultural resources, paleontology, and soils, disciplines directly relevant to a refuge underlain by federal minerals in the Uinta Basin, a region with known tribal cultural sites and significant paleontological resources. The absence of these specialists from the listed team signals gaps in the forthcoming EA's resource coverage. The agency should add cultural resources, paleontology, and soils specialists to the interdisciplinary team before analysis begins.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe 30-day scoping period closes October 5, 2026, and the notice states the public meeting date 'will be announced at least 15 days in advance.' With a 30-day window, a meeting announced on day 15 wou
The 30-day scoping period closes October 5, 2026, and the notice states the public meeting date 'will be announced at least 15 days in advance.' With a 30-day window, a meeting announced on day 15 would leave as little as 15 days for the public to digest meeting information and submit comments. For a proposal affecting a National Wildlife Refuge with complex subsurface geology and directional drilling implications, 30 days is inadequate. The agency should extend the scoping period to at least 60 days and announce the public meeting date at the same time as the notice so affected communities have full opportunity to participate.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe notice frames the proposed action as opening minerals to leasing 'subject to a no surface occupancy stipulation' and states lease development would occur through directional drilling from pads out
The notice frames the proposed action as opening minerals to leasing 'subject to a no surface occupancy stipulation' and states lease development would occur through directional drilling from pads outside the refuge boundary, but provides no analysis of where those surface pads would be located, what lands would be affected outside the refuge, or whether those off-refuge locations have their own resource conflicts. The EA as scoped could approve subsurface leasing while leaving all surface impact analysis to a later APD stage, effectively deferring the core environmental analysis. The agency should commit in the scoping record to analyzing reasonably foreseeable off-refuge pad locations and their impacts within the EA, not at the APD stage.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe notice proposes only two preliminary alternatives: No Action and a single Proposed Action with a no surface occupancy stipulation.
The notice proposes only two preliminary alternatives: No Action and a single Proposed Action with a no surface occupancy stipulation. NEPA requires a reasonable range of alternatives, yet no intermediate options are identified, such as leasing with enhanced monitoring requirements, partial acreage leasing, or a phased approach tied to USFWS compatibility determinations. Offering only two binary alternatives at the scoping stage effectively forecloses the development of a genuine range of alternatives before public input is collected. The agency should develop and analyze at least one additional alternative that includes different stipulation packages or acreage configurations.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe agency justifies the need for action partly on 'external interest in leasing' without disclosing who submitted that interest, how many acres are sought, or whether that interest meets any threshol
The agency justifies the need for action partly on 'external interest in leasing' without disclosing who submitted that interest, how many acres are sought, or whether that interest meets any threshold for triggering a plan amendment. A need statement driven by undisclosed private interest, with no public record of what was requested, cannot be evaluated by the public during the 30-day scoping window. The agency should disclose the identity of the applicant(s), the acreage nominated, and any lease applications received, so the public can assess whether the stated need is sufficient to justify amending the existing RMP closure.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe notice states the planning area encompasses 'less than 5,200 acres of federal minerals' managed by BLM while the surface is managed by USFWS as part of the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, yet the
The notice states the planning area encompasses 'less than 5,200 acres of federal minerals' managed by BLM while the surface is managed by USFWS as part of the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, yet the notice provides no discussion of whether USFWS has made or will make a compatibility determination under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act before or concurrent with the EA. Without a USFWS compatibility finding, BLM's EA would be analyzing leasing that may be legally unavailable. The agency should disclose the current status of any USFWS compatibility review and confirm that finding will be completed before or concurrent with the RMPA decision.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe notice states the EA will rely on 'modern drilling technology' as a basis for reconsidering the existing RMP closure, but provides no description of what technologies are being assumed, what setba
The notice states the EA will rely on 'modern drilling technology' as a basis for reconsidering the existing RMP closure, but provides no description of what technologies are being assumed, what setback distances from the refuge boundary are being considered, or what blowout or spill scenarios will be modeled. Because the entire proposed action depends on directional or horizontal drilling from outside the refuge, the specific technological assumptions are central to the effects analysis. The agency should disclose in the scoping record the drilling technology parameters being assumed and commit to analyzing worst-case subsurface failure scenarios within the EA.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
- PendingThe document states the planning area covers less than 5,200 acres of federal minerals in Uintah County, Utah.
The document states the planning area covers less than 5,200 acres of federal minerals in Uintah County, Utah.
- PendingThe document states the surface acreage of the planning area is managed by the U.S.
The document states the surface acreage of the planning area is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge.
- PendingThe notice states the seven preliminary issues identified for analysis are available only on the project website, not in the Federal Register notice itself.
The notice states the seven preliminary issues identified for analysis are available only on the project website, not in the Federal Register notice itself. Members of the public without internet access, or those in rural areas with limited connectivity near the Vernal Field Office, cannot review the planning criteria or preliminary issues without visiting a separate online platform. Restricting access to planning criteria to a website during a 30-day scoping period disadvantages those most likely to be locally affected. The agency should publish the seven preliminary issues and planning criteria in full in the Federal Register notice or mail them on request at no cost.
A hole PLAN found in the agency’s own notice, quote verified against the text
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