In October, the Bureau of Land Administration finalized a brand new useful resource administration plan for Colorado’s Western Slope that can decide how 2 million acres of public land are managed for the subsequent 15-20 years.
The plan contains some conservation wins; it units apart land designated as important habitat, for instance, and institutes further protections for large recreation. But it surely additionally permits continued leasing in areas which have reasonable and excessive potential for oil and fuel improvement — with a specific give attention to locations with the distinctive geological situations obligatory for helium manufacturing.
Helium is a noble fuel, which means it’s chemically inert and doesn’t react with different substances. These qualities imply that it’s in excessive demand for quite a lot of important makes use of in medical know-how, diving and nationwide protection; diagnostic procedures like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), for instance, and nuclear detection techniques, together with neutron detectors, all depend upon helium. At present, there are not any artificial substitutes for the fuel that may replicate its low boiling level and low reactivity.
Whereas some helium is reused in some scientific areas, broader adoption of recycling remains to be restricted by value and infrastructure limitations. Some biotech firms are creating helium-free MRI techniques and techniques that use helium reclamation models, however helium stays a necessary useful resource that many applied sciences want. And the world’s provide of the fuel is quickly dwindling.
Luna Anna Archey/Excessive Nation Information with assist from EcoFlight
This shortage has put rising stress on federal public lands to supply a useful resource important to trade and nationwide safety. Helium is nonrecoverable: As soon as it’s launched, it escapes into the ambiance and finally into house. Based on the BLM, it’s “a nonrenewable useful resource present in recoverable portions in just a few areas all over the world; many of those are being depleted.”
In its last plan for western Colorado, the BLM proposes closing 543,300 acres within the Grand Junction Discipline Workplace to grease and fuel leasing, however holding 692,300 open, together with about 165,700 acres which were recognized for helium restoration. A BLM spokesperson mentioned that the nation’s shrinking helium reserves influenced the administration plan: “The ultimate resolution on this plan to maintain the helium space open to future leasing was primarily based on helium’s rarity and strategic significance.”
Keely Meehan, coverage director for the Colorado Wildlands Mission, a nonprofit targeted on defending public lands managed by the BLM, criticized the plan for prioritizing useful resource extraction over preserving important habitat.
“The environmental impacts and the influence to habitat and species is identical as for oil and fuel,” mentioned Meehan. “It disrupts habitat connectivity.”
The delicate areas in query embrace migration corridors and seasonal ranges important for species resembling mule deer, elk, pronghorn and bighorn sheep, in addition to habitat that the threatened Gunnison sage grouse depends on for breeding, nesting and feeding.
Based on the U.S. Geological Survey, which performed a survey of helium assets throughout the nation, there may be loads of recoverable helium obtainable — roughly 306 billion cubic toes, or about 150 years of provide on the 2020 U.S. manufacturing degree, which involves about 2.15 billion cubic toes yearly. It’s unclear how a lot of that helium is discovered on federal public lands. Helium tends to happen naturally in pure fuel reservoirs, and since federal public lands within the West account for a big share of pure fuel manufacturing, a lot of the U.S.’s helium reserves possible reside on public lands.
Some rural western Colorado communities, lots of which have traditionally relied on useful resource extraction, welcome the prospect of ongoing helium manufacturing. The Related Governments of Northwest Colorado (AGNC), a council of metropolis and county governments in that a part of the state, advocated for opening the world to helium extraction in public feedback to the company, citing the potential financial advantages.
“Helium possesses substantial financial potential and will doubtlessly function a significant useful resource in supporting communities grappling with impending financial challenges,” the AGNC wrote within the feedback.
Different communities disagree, nevertheless, and the plan revealed the continuing stress between rural communities that depend upon useful resource extraction and people who depend on outside recreation, resembling Pitkin and Eagle counties. The Mountain Pact, a coalition of native elected officers from over 100 mountain communities with outside recreation-based economies, argued in public feedback that leaving the helium leases open could be detrimental to the pure assets that appeal to tourism {dollars} and funding.
“Protected public lands are super belongings to Western Colorado communities,” the Mountain Pact wrote to the BLM in a public remark. “They play a important function in our lifestyle. They assist make the communities the place we reside what they’re whereas contributing to a more healthy and higher tomorrow for future generations.
Along with the on-the-ground impacts of helium manufacturing, which echo these of pure fuel extraction, opponents additionally introduced up considerations about processing. Helium is separated from pure fuel by way of a cryogenic course of that makes use of cooling and stress adjustments, which require vitality, typically from pure fuel.
Western Colorado at the moment lacks a facility that may course of helium, nevertheless, and conservationists concern that constructing one, along with the required roads and different infrastructure, would disrupt wildlife habitat and doubtlessly take away some parcels from consideration for future wilderness protections.
“We’re actually involved about these wild locations,” mentioned Meehan, “and defending areas which might be at the moment not developed. There are actually high-priority wildlands on this space, in addition to high-priority habitat.”
