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New mining claims will now be prohibited on approximately 30,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land near the park’s northern entrance.

Release of the Proposed Final Program, along with the accompanying Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, is one of the final steps in a multi-year process that was initiated in June 2014 to develop a final offshore leasing program for 2017-2022.

The Record of Decision addresses deficiencies in the original environmental analyses and process used to support the initial issuance of oil and gas leases in the region.

Participating EITI countries work collaboratively with industry and civil society representatives to implement the initiative and to publish an annual report in which governments and companies publicly disclose royalties, rents, bonuses, taxes, and other payments from oil, gas and mining resources. The United States is an EITI implementing country.

The cancellation respects recommendations by the U.S. Forest Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and concerns expressed by the Blackfeet Tribe and interested members of the public. It is also consistent with the BLM decision earlier this year to cancel the lease held by Solonex LLC. 

The BLM’s previous rules addressing venting and flaring were adopted long before new technologies unlocked vast new natural gas supplies in the United States.

The Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property.

The rule strengthens existing policies and creates a new leasing program that will support renewable energy development through competitive leasing processes and incentives to encourage development in suitable areas.

The 96-hour-release will pick up enough sand from tributary channels to fill a building as big as a football field and as tall as the Washington Monument, all the way to the brim. These hundreds of thousands of tons of sediment will be re-deposited along downstream reaches as sandbars and beaches along the Colorado River, mimicking natural river flow.