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Michael Blenden

US Fish and Wildlife Service

9383 El Rancho Lane

Alamosa, CO 81101

27 February, 2008

Dear Mr. Blenden,

As active members of the Crestone Spiritual Alliance and long time residents of the San Luis Valley here in Crestone, we the Nada Carmelite Hermitage community would like to convey to you once again our deepest concerns with regards to the Lexam Company’s proposed drilling sites on the Wildlife Refuge. We strongly request that a full Environmental Impact Statement be implemented prior to any further consideration of gas and oil exploration with it’s possible subsequent drilling operation being set in place. The scope of the Environmental Assessment seems far too narrow and limited and thus we strongly encourage you to pursue a full EIS that is necessary to fulfill appropriate protection of the Wildlife Refuge for which you, as an integral part of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, are largely responsible to maintain and protect.

This EA as it currently stands lacks the basic information as required by the NEPA and therefore we ask that you demand a full Environmental Impact Statement.

As we stated in our letter to you in September of 2007, our ministry and life here at Nada Hermitage as a retreat center is to provide a quiet, solitary, sacred wilderness setting as a place of refuge for people from all walks of life, religious traditions and affiliations to come to spend time apart from their day to day life, steeped in the silence and solitude and beauty of this desert valley. One of the frequent comments from retreatants as they are leaving to return to home is how important they feel maintaining places like Nada and Crestone itself are as there are few places left anywhere where they can find such a sacred, still environment.

By way of reintroduction we are the Spiritual Life Institute, a non-profit Roman Catholic community operating for the last twenty-five years as a spiritual retreat center named the Nada Carmelite Hermitage here in Crestone serving the people of the San Luis Valley, from different parts of Colorado, as well as people from around the country, Canada, Mexico and parts of Europe. For nearly 45 years as a community and for the 25 years we have been in Crestone we have offered to people from all walks of life the opportunity to come to our Hermitage to retreat, to be still, to rest, to pray and meditate, to reconnect with themselves and then return to their lives refreshed and renewed. As part of the wilderness retreat experience we encourage our guests to explore the richness of this San Luis Valley, visit places like the Great National Sand Dunes and hike on trails in these Sangre de Cristo mountains. Since the mid 80’s many families and individuals have moved to Crestone to be close to Nada, finding their own means of income, establishing businesses of their own and enriching our lives as they worship and pray with us.

But a crucial component to the kind of retreat experience we provide is a sacred wilderness landscape that is a beautiful, quiet environment conducive to renewal. Crestone and this Valley is that place.

Therefore I am sure you can understand that our very life as a retreat center would be seriously threatened if the proposed oil and gas drilling by Lexam goes forward with the incumbent noise level and the accompanying halogen lighting, to say nothing of the possible threat to the quality of the water and the very air we breathe so vital for the life of the San Luis Valley.

Experts in the various fields dealing with this possible threat to the numerous species of wildlife as well as the preservation of this pristine wilderness, the water and air quality, are doing their part to address these issues that are so vital to living here in the Crestone/Baca, San Luis Valley. It is what drew many of us here in the first place.

We are concerned about every aspect. But as I have restated here, on a very foundational level and speaking specifically for our Carmelite community, if this exploration and drilling takes place, we would quickly become one of the threatened species and would have to leave this Valley where we have lived and survived and been a place of refuge for thousands of people over the last twenty-five years. If the beauty and the stillness and the pristine wilderness of this place is threatened – our lives and existence are equally threatened and unquestionably in danger of extinction. Our deepest hope and clear sense of call is to continue for yet another 25 years in our mission as a silent and solitary retreat center at Nada hermitage here in Crestone.

Please do everything you can to help preserve and protect this Valley that is such a place of connection for those of us who live here and for the countless numbers of people who have and who will visit this Valley and whose lives are irrevocably changed and enhanced in a way only the beauty of a sacred and pristine wilderness landscape can provide.

To this end we ask again that a thorough Environmental Impact Statement be completed to fulfill appropriate protection of the Wildlife refuge, the San Luis Valley as a whole, the water, air and on the going quality of life for all of us who live here and for the future visitors and residents of this beautiful, unique place.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter, listening to our on going concerns and considering our comments.

Respectfully,

Susan Ryan

Nada Carmelite Hermitage

Box 219

1 Carmelite Way

Crestone, CO 81131-0219

www.spirituallifeinstitute.org