Elko Daily Free Press 7-29-10

Opposition grows to El Paso deal

ELKO - Elko County Commissioner Demar Dahl said Wednesday counties in Utah and Wyoming are worried about El Paso Corp.'s deal with two environmental organizations, as is Elko County.

"There are a lot of upset people," he said a day after he attended a Boxelder County Commission meeting in Brigham City, Utah.

"The general consensus was that counties all together make a demand to El Paso that it not pay any money to Western Watersheds," Dahl said.

There was no formal action at the meeting, but the counties could try to delay the Ruby Pipeline if they can't get satisfaction otherwise, he said.

El Paso Corp. announced earlier this month it reached a $20 million arrangement with Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Foundation to establish conservation funds for each organization in exchange for them dropping their protests against El Paso's planned $3 billion Ruby Pipeline.

The $20 million over 10 years is for conservation projects but the two organizations stated they hoped to buy grazing permits from willing ranchers, if Congress at some point passes legislation allowing the federal government to retire grazing permits.

Dahl said Elko County "supported El Paso right from the beginning" on the company's efforts to permit construction of the 680-mile natural gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon, but the deal with Western Watersheds threatens that support.

"We felt stabbed in the back when we discovered El Paso cut a deal with Western Watersheds," Dahl said.

Elko County Commissioner John Ellison said Wednesday he attended a Nevada Association of Counties meeting Tuesday, and rural counties are "really, really concerned with the impact. We will do whatever we can to make the best out of a bad situation."

Ellison said he is waiting to see what happens at the Nevada Legislature's Public Lands Committee meeting Friday in Ely, where El Paso representatives are on the agenda to talk about the arrangement with Western Watersheds and the Oregon group.

The Ely meeting begins at 8:30 a.m., and Dahl and Ellison said they will attend.

The Public Lands Council, which is an offshoot of the National Cattlemen's Association, was meeting today in Denver and was planning to talk about the El Paso deal, according to Dahl. Earlier reports were that the meeting would be Friday.

Dahl said El Paso stressed at the Utah meeting that each conservation fund will have three board members, an El Paso representative, an at-large representative and a representative from the organization.

They also emphasized that the funds could only buy grazing permits from willing sellers and that the conservation funds can't be used for litigation, according to Dahl.

He said "everybody rejected the idea" that the boards alone would stop action on grazing permits, and they are looking for alternative solutions.

He speculated El Paso didn't realize if the government could retire grazing permits "it would do away with the livestock industry."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has already approved the Ruby Pipeline, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its record of decision earlier this month on rights of way, but El Paso doesn't have the final go-ahead to start work.

FERC has to issue an order to proceed, and memorandums from the historic preservation offices of the states where the pipeline will go still have to be finalized. Also, a request for rehearing is still pending before FERC.

FERC spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen said Wednesday if FERC agrees to a rehearing, it would be on a specific portion of its original order approving the pipeline. Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife requests are still on the books, but Western Watersheds and the Oregon organization have withdrawn their requests.

There are no public comment periods remaining at the FERC level, Young-Allen said.

The BLM's decision, however, has a 60-day window for filing appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals from the time the decision was issued on July 12.

Meanwhile, the Center for Biological Diversity in Portland, Ore., announced Tuesday it has sent a request to FERC to withdraw its approval of the Ruby Pipeline, arguing that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's review of the project's impact on endangered fish species was flawed.

"The Ruby Pipeline will have disastrous environmental and social consequences across a wide swath of the West," Noah Greenwood, the endangered species program director at the center, stated in an announcement.

The center notes El Paso reached an agreement with the conservation groups, but Greenwood stated that "although El Paso Corp. has taken steps to reduce some of the tremendous impacts of the Ruby Pipeline on the environment, serious concerns remain. More needs to be done to ensure the pipeline doesn't drive endangered fish to extinction."