A federal judge Friday denied the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance's request for a temporary restraining order to stop a Farmington fuel supplier from drilling for natural gas on land near Desolation Canyon.
The environmental group says Wasatch Oil and Gas, which has had a lease to drill in the area in northeastern Carbon County since 1951, is attempting to drill during a time of year prohibited by the Bureau of Land Management.
"When the BLM did an assessment this summer, one stipulation was that you cannot drill between November and May, because it's a winter range for wildlife habitat," SUWA spokesman Mike Reberg said.
Reberg says mule deer, elk and, most recently, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep winter in the area of the Book Cliffs east of Price.
"Sure the company has a right to drill, but why after 50 years do they need to do it now
and can't wait until May?" Reberg said.
But the company's president, Todd Cusick, called SUWA's allegations "crazy."
He said the well has been in operation since 1952 and that company employees "go there every day."
"We were there last winter doing operation of a similar nature," he said.
Cusick said this year the company plans to drill a new well some 20 feet from an existing one and doesn't expect any surface disturbance.
"There are many wells operating in that area," he said. "(SUWA) is stepping right into an existing oil and gas operation. It's truly such a ridiculous position to come and try to take away someone's rights as they've existed since 1951."
U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball agreed to hear the case next week but would not stop the drilling immediately.
BLM Director Sally Wisely told SUWA in a letter Thursday the BLM supports the company. "The prescriptions for oil and gas activities in the land-use plan provide for exceptions to the seasonal restriction on a case-by-case basis," she wrote.
Wisely also told the environmentalists the surface activity the company is proposing would not create "loss of any crucial big-game winter range habitat."
But in the motion for a temporary restraining order before Kimball, SUWA said early season temperatures and heavy snowfall already have forced elk and deer onto their winter range.
"Obviously we're disappointed (in the judge's ruling)," Reberg said. "Between now and the hearing next week there is a good chance that this drilling will be well under way and that the impact to wildlife in the area will be felt in a tremendously negative way."
The environmentalists say that "any activity" on the range land would cause "irreparable harm" to the animals, who already are stressed by harsh winter conditions.
Cusick would not confirm SUWA's claims that Wasatch Oil and Gas intended to begin predrilling activities on the land Friday morning.
The land area in question is protected by a land management plan for the Price River Resource Area.
The BLM's wilderness inventory notes that the nearby Desolation Canyon Wilderness Study Area has some "unnatural" areas — places where there are roads and remnants of past oil and gas exploration.
But the report also says "this is a place where a visitor can experience true solitude — where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."
E-MAIL: mtitze@desnews.com