CHC pursues FOIA lawsuit

With just over a few days remaining for the public to protest the plan to lease 20,000 acres of public lands surrounding the North Fork Valley to oil and gas developers, Citizens for a Healthy Community (CHC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) have asked a court to require the federal government to immediately release the names of the corporations that nominated these public lands for drilling.

The groups filed a preliminary injunction in November in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado seeking an expedited resolution to their ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which the groups filed in June 2012.

WELC says, "BLM's decision to lease the parcels in the Feb. 2013 lease sale left the groups no choice but to seek the expedited ruling so that concerned residents would be able to acquire the requested information — information critical to their opportunity to fully participate in the public protest period regarding these oil and gas leases."

In Dec. 2011, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it intended to lease 30,000 acres of public lands surrounding Colorado's North Fork Valley at its Aug. 2012 lease sale.

"So that local residents could learn more about the entities proposing such extensive development in and around their communities, CHC and WELC requested that BLM release the names of the entities that had nominated these lands for drilling, as they were likely to be the companies that would ultimately be drilling and fracking in the rural, agricultural community. BLM refused to reveal their identity, which led to the FOIA legal action," the joint CHC and WELC press release stated.

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