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Environmental Best Management Practice Awards:
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News Release: 2009 Award Winners Announced 2009 Awards Video: The 12-minute video (left) profiles this year's winners. Click the triangle button to start. There may be a brief delay depending on your connection speed.
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2010 Awards: Nominations for 2010 BMP Awards Are Now OPEN
- ANNOUNCEMENT -
2010 Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Development
Environmental Best Management Practices Awards Program
United States Department of the Interior
Bureau of Land Management
The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announces the fifth annual Oil, Gas, Geophysical, and Geothermal Development Environmental Best Management Practices (BMP) Awards Program to promote and showcase the finest examples of responsible fluid mineral resource development on BLM-managed public lands, other Federal agency lands, Indian Trust lands, or on Federal split estate lands where the surface is privately owned and the BLM manages the mineral estate. The 2010 BMP awards will recognize oil, gas, geophysical, and geothermal operators and their partners who demonstrate leadership and creativity in reducing the impacts of oil, gas, geophysical, and geothermal development. The BMP Awards Program will serve as an important component of the BLM’s overall approach to ensuring that energy development is conducted in an environmentally responsible manner. For current information on the Awards Program, visit: http://www.blm.gov/bmp
What are BMPs?
- Constructing the smallest well pads and access roads needed to safely develop and access the well. Unnecessarily large well pads and roads contribute to greater loss of vegetation and wildlife habitat. Where it has been determined to be appropriate, some operators are now using small, two-track roads, resulting in significant reductions in the loss of vegetation.
- Reshaping and revegetating producing oil or gas well locations through extensive use of interim reclamation to restore wildlife habitat, protect soils, and maintain scenic quality. With standard interim reclamation, operators have typically reduced the size of producing well locations by half. For a new producing well pad, the BMP is to reshape more of the well pad to blend it with the surrounding topography, cover it with topsoil, and revegetate nearly the entire well pad. This still allows the operator to set up future workover operations on the remaining flat area and over the new vegetation when necessary.
- Reshaping plugged and abandoned well locations and access roads to the original contour or a contour that blends with the surrounding topography, replacing the topsoil, and revegetating the sites so that they blend with the landscape over time. In 5 to 20 years, it will be increasingly difficult to identify where many of these wells and roads were located as the planted and local native vegetation recolonize the sites.
- Where appropriate, burying pipelines in or adjacent to the road to reduce the loss of native vegetation and scenic resources, rather than burying cross-country or laying pipelines on the surface.
- Many operators are burying power lines to hide them from view and to prevent raptor electrocution or raptor perching and preying on other sensitive species.
- Where possible, centralizing production facilities off-site and using telemetry to monitor wells in important wildlife habitat to reduce the need for all-weather roads and vehicle trips that disturb wildlife. For example, one operator in Wyoming estimated that by centralizing its production facilities offsite, it will eliminate up to 25,000 truck trips per year in important wildlife habitat.
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BLM State Office and Mailing Address | Area of Jurisdiction |
Alaska State Office | Contact: Greg J. Noble Alaska |
Arizona State Office | Contact: Jeff Garrett Arizona |
California State Office | Contact: Jim Haerter California |
Colorado State Office | Contact: Sherri Thompson Colorado |
Eastern States State Office | Contact: Steve Klimetz Subsurface Federal Lands in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin |
Idaho State Office | Contact: Karen Porter Idaho |
Montana State Office | Contact: John Brown Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota |
Nevada State Office | Contact: John Menghini Nevada |
New Mexico State Office | Contact: Jay Spielman Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas |
Oregon State Office | Contact: Tom Wawro Oregon and Washington |
Utah State Office | Contact: Mike McKinley Utah |
Wyoming State Office | Contact: Darryl Watts Wyoming and Nebraska |
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What should the nomination contain?
Each nomination should include the following:
Cover sheet containing:
• Name of the nominated company.
• Name and location of the project area(s), if applicable.
• Contact information for the person or company or organization representative making the nomination including name, affiliation, address, telephone number and e-mail address.
• Contact information for the oil, gas, or geothermal company, if different from above.
Narrative description that includes:
• Description of the specific BMP activity or practice, including specifics, where applicable, on leadership, creativity, problems, solutions, extent of BMP use, approximate costs, partnering, land ownership, and unusual circumstances.
• History of why the BMP was selected, and whether it was required or voluntary.
• Short- and long-term benefits of the BMP(s) to the environment or community.
• Effectiveness of the work, quantified where possible.
• Transferability of the work or value of the accomplishments to other oil, gas, or geothermal operations.
• A list of references, with telephone numbers of individuals who can validate the successful use of the BMP(s).
• Statement summarizing why the award is deserved.
Photographs (highly recommended):
Photographs are highly encouraged, if they help to document the success of the nominated activity. Not all nominated activities can be photographed, but pictures should be included whenever available. Photographs should be 8” by 10” or smaller and include a description explaining what is illustrated and the approximate date the photo was taken. Photos submitted on a CD in JPG format are highly recommende, along with a signed statement that the photographs are released for public use, are appreciated.
Format:
Submit three copies of the nomination on 8½” by 11” paper. Please try to limit nominations to 10 pages or less of typed text. There is no limit on the number of photographs.
Supporting documentation, such as letters of recognition from regulators or community officials or newspaper articles, is not required, but may be submitted with the nomination.
How will the award winners be selected?
Each BLM State Office will review the nominations submitted to that office and verify the information contained in the nomination and that the operation or program complies with applicable regulations and permits. All nominations will be accompanied by a Statement of Findings, prepared by the BLM State Office, and will be forwarded to the BLM Headquarters Office for referral to a panel of judges.
The panel of judges will consist of energy industry and natural resource experts and may comprise Federal agencies, academic institutions, trade and conservation groups, and members of the public. Each judge will rate each application based on the criteria similar to the following:
| Criteria | Maximum Points |
| Clarity and thoroughness of the nomination | 5 |
| Effectiveness of the project or program | 25 |
| Transferability of the technique, practice or program | 20 |
| Short- and long-term benefits of the BMP(s) to the environment or community | 20 |
| Difficulty of the problem addressed by the project or program | 20 |
| Extent to which the project or program exceeds regulatory requirements or public expectations | 10 |
The judges will use their personal experience when evaluating the unique aspects of each application. There may be situations where the categories above do not adequately capture all of these unique characteristics. The judges may modify the criteria by consensus. The judges determine the award winners. There is no minimum or maximum number of awards that may be granted in any one year.
Nominations for the 2010 awards program must be filed with the BLM State Offices by November 1, 2009. The BLM State Offices will review and forward all nominations to the BLM Washington Office by December 1, 2010. It is anticipated that results will be formally announced at an industry or BLM conference in 2010.
For Additional Information:
- BLM – Bryce Barlan, Natural Resource Specialist, Division of Minerals (WO-310), bryce_barlan@blm.gov , or by telephone at 202-452-5197; or
- U.S. Forest Service – Tracy Parker, Energy Minerals Program Manager, tparker03@fs.fed.us , or by telephone at 703-605-4796.
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