FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oil and Gas Drilling Threatens South Shale Ridge and Roan Plateau Wildflower With Extinction

Conservation Coalition Acts to Save Native Colorado Wildflower

Threatened with extinction by oil and gas drilling in the Roan Plateau/South Shale Ridge area of western Colorado, the DeBeque phacelia received critical aid today when Center for Native Ecosystems, the Colorado Native Plant Society, and botanist Steve O'Kane (an expert on the plant) submitted a formal petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the plant.

Threatened with extinction by oil and gas drilling in the Roan Plateau/South Shale Ridge area of western Colorado, the DeBeque phacelia received critical aid today when Center for Native Ecosystems, the Colorado Native Plant Society, and botanist Steve O'Kane (an expert on the plant) submitted a formal petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the plant. Though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has considered it a candidate for Endangered Species Act listing for twenty-five years, the agency has taken no action to protect the plant.

"This rare wildflower is quickly heading for extinction," said Josh Pollock, Center for Native Ecosystems Policy Director. "Meanwhile, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been sitting on its hands for twenty five years. It is high time for the Service to protect this native."

DeBeque phacelia grows only on the adobe hills around the town of DeBeque southwest of the top of the Roan Plateau, a range of less than 220 square miles. Nearly all of its occupied habitat is leased by the Bureau of Land Management for oil and gas drilling and faces increasing pressure from dirt bikes and other ATVs, road and pipeline construction, and even potential oil shale mining.

The Roan Plateau has been a magnet for controversy over the past year as the Bureau of Land Management continues to push hard to open up the area to oil and gas drilling over the widespread objections of local governments, local residents, hunters, conservationist groups, and others. Similarly, this month the Bureau of Land Management proposed new oil and gas leasing in South Shale Ridge, reviving old worries over its future as well.

"We strongly support efforts to increase protection for DeBeque phacelia due to the potential for habitat degradation, fragmentation, and population decline resulting from energy development and other impacts," explained Laurel Potts, president of the Colorado Native Plant Society.

Industry insiders forecast 10,000 new wells for Garfield County in the coming decades, more than are found in Saudi Arabia and Iran combined. In light of this impending drilling pressure, every local government in Garfield County has endorsed a conservation plan that would protect the top of the Roan Plateau while allowing responsible drilling around the base, which would protect rare wildflowers like the DeBeque phacelia.

This native plant's precarious status is well known. The Colorado Natural Heritage Program classifies the plant as "imperiled" and at risk of extinction, and the Forest Service considers the DeBeque milkvetch a "sensitive species" but so far has not taken the step of protecting the plant or its habitat. The Bureau of Land Management claims to survey for the plant when new gas pipelines and other projects are proposed but still allows oil and gas drilling, off-road vehicle riding, and livestock grazing nearly everywhere this wildflower grows.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service, the BLM, and the Forest Service all acknowledge that the DeBeque phacelia is at risk of extinction but have done little to protect it," said Mr. Pollock. "Extinction is not sound stewardship."

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