Conservation groups have filed a legal challenge against a plan for a couple of exploratory wells

Two can be too many. Conservation groups have filed a legal challenge against a plan for a couple of exploratory wells in the Desolation Road area of Adobe Town, on the grounds that the area is in the heart of the citizen’s proposed wilderness area. Vernon Lovejoy was the B-L-M outdoor recreation planner who conducted the original wilderness inventories for Adobe Town in the early 1980s. He says the area met the criteria for wilderness from the “get-go.” And there are other reasons the area is special – with fossil records scattered throughout, along with cultural sites.






There’s a back-story, too. Anadarko Petroleum commissioned a 3-D seismic survey of the area back in 2002, but found so little in oil and gas that the company decided not to drill a single well. Lovejoy remembers in the 1970s when he was told that Adobe Town had enough natural gas to fuel the City of Denver for 30 years…and here more than 30 years later, he says all the wells drilled have been non-producers.






The legal challenge notes that the B-L-M discovered new sage grouse breeding areas just before approving the project, which would mean more environmental scrutiny is needed. Samson Resources Company from Oklahoma plans the exploratory wells just south of The Haystacks, and the B-L-M issued a ‘Finding No Significant Impact’ decision to give the project a green light.