Mayor Dave Sakrison said Thursday that he has met with U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials about a 600-acre parcel in the aquifer the city and Grand County tap for all of their municipal uses. Sakrison said he would ask the Moab City Council on Nov. 25 to submit an official protest against the sale of the lease parcel, which also underlies several neighborhoods.

"Obviously we've got some major concern. It's our sole-source aquifer protection area," Sakrison said. And despite federal assurance that any actual drilling would have to occur outside the neighborhoods, "that's still problematic as far as we're concerned," he said.

"Part of our golf course sits in this lease parcel and a whole lot of private property. We're taking this very seriously," Sakrison said.

Moab residents were shocked earlier this week to discover that a BLM oil and gas lease sale scheduled for Dec. 19 includes a parcel in unincorporated Grand County just beyond the Moab city line. Several residential neighborhoods in Spanish Valley, parts of the municipal golf course and popular hiking trails are on the parcel.

That was bad enough. But the prospect of petrochemical pollution in the 10,000-acre aquifer is even more unacceptable, said John Weisheit, conservation director of the nonprofit group Living Rivers in Moab.

"If we have accidents in our aquifer, the toxic material would move very quickly into our water [taps]," Weisheit said. A cleanup would have to be done in a matter of hours, which is impossible, he said.

Shelley Smith, the BLM's Moab field office director, said the long-range management plan for the region prohibits "surface occupancy" - that is, no drill pads would be allowed on the 600-acre lease parcel. However, drillers could reach the oil from an angle, which means pipes and other industrial apparatus would be intruding on the aquifer that lies just under the ground's surface.

The Moab resource management plan has stricter protections on the watershed that feeds the aquifer; absolutely no oil or gas drilling is allowed around the springs and wells on the sandstone rims above the valley. Once the water is in the aquifer, however, restrictions are no stricter than those in place for the Moab airport and landfill.

The Environmental Protection Agency has certified the aquifer as pristine. The certification means that as the sole source of potable water, special guidelines and policies are in place to ensure the aquifer is not put at risk.

Smith said the BLM knows the parcel doesn't have high potential for oil yield; in fact, there is very little oil and gas development in the area - just a few pumps operate around Dead Horse Point State Park and the BLM's Island in the Sky.

So who nominated the parcel? And why? Smith said she doesn't know the answer to either question. Even if she had the name of the person who made the nomination, there likely would be no direct link to a developer.

"Maybe whoever nominated it won't be interested now that it would have development costs it wouldn't have had before," she said. "We're giving it a real close look."

The BLM already is battling the National Park Service over oil and gas lease parcels near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument also on the list. The Park Service wants to delay the Dec. 19 lease sales. The BLM has refused to do so. Senior officials with the two agencies, both administered under the Interior Department, are in negotiations that Mike Snyder, the Denver-based Park Service regional director, says he expects to conclude by Nov. 24.

Moab's concerns

* At issue: BLM oil and gas lease plans include local pristine water source.

* Complaint: Locals believe the plan poses a danger of contamination.

* Response: BLM maintains proper planning process and protections are in place.

* Ahead: Moab's mayor is asking City Council to make a formal protest.