The headline, “Advisory Board Rejects Plans for Oil and Gas Regulation” (Journal, June 14), is not a truthful summary of the meeting of the Bureau of Land Management Southwest Regional Advisory Council (RAC).
I attended the day-long meeting on June 10th and at no point during the meeting was a vote taken that rejected proceeding with a Master Leasing Plan (MLP) process for eastern La Plata County and the central portion of Montezuma County. In fact, the only vote taken on this issue was to table the decision until a future meeting of the group in late July or early August.
There was general agreement around the table of the RAC members on several items:
That most of the public comments made during previous meetings were in favor of he MLP; That the process established by BLM to advise them about establishing an MLP was confusing, awkward, and time-consuming; That the recreation resources, especially the Phil’s World bike trail system, should have strong protections. While headlines don’t often tell the whole story, there is no excuse for them to be untrue.
MB McAfee
Lewis