February 28, 2013 02:58 PM UTC

Will Hankins get the message?

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• by: checks-and-balances

This week, Alan Prendergast wrote in Westword about a new Environment Colorado campaign to protect Colorado’s national parks from drilling:

“When you’re a bureaucrat under fire, accused of being a tool of Big Oil, there’s nothing like a big, wet kiss from your critics to let you know you’re being watched — closely. Particularly if that greeting takes the form of a giant billboard on I-70 in Golden, not far from the Bureau of Land Management office where Colorado director Helen Hankins ponders oil and gas leases on public lands and other weighty matters.”

Since assuming her post in 2010, Dir. Hankins has executed her job as if she were a real estate agent for oil and gas companies. She has proposed allowing drilling on lands near national parks, Denver’s watershed in South Park, agricultural communities… anywhere that industry asked for it.

After a year of public outcry – that was heard all the way to the Department of Interior in Washington, D.C. – she deferred many of those leases, but that’s not a permanent solution. Environment Colorado’s roadside message to Dir. Hankins should be seen as a reminder – Do your job the way it’s supposed to be done.