WASHINGTON - Consultants paid by the oil and gas industry have been volunteering to work for the Bureau of Land Management's Vernal office for the past five months, expediting environmental studies to keep pace with a glut of drilling requests in the region.

The arrangement alarms environmental groups, which say it creates a clear conflict of interest and could compromise the work they do.

"This is very troubling," said Steve Bloch, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "It's akin to the foxes guarding the henhouse. These are public lands and there clearly is a quid pro quo expected here, that there is going to be faster permitting, faster approval rates, and instead they really should be taking their time to make sure they're doing it right."

But the industry and BLM say the five consultants are there to help ease the load for the overburdened BLM office, and a series of safeguards are in place to guarantee the work remains objective and corners aren't cut.

"BLM needs help. We can't be everywhere and as long as the information coming in is without prejudice, we'll take it," said BLM's Vernal Field Manager Bill Stringer.

The arrangement takes place amid a crush of companies clamoring to drill for oil and gas in the Uinta Basin, and an agency whose budget has been cut in the midst of the stampede.

Facing a backlog of about 400 permits in the Vernal field office, a handful of small oil and gas companies pooled their resources through their trade group, Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, to hire the consultants through SWCA Environmental Consulting to "volunteer" in the Vernal office.

The consultants - experts in archaeology, paleontology, geology and wildlife biology - went to work in mid-February and committed to work full time for three months, according to documents obtained by SUWA under the Freedom of Information Act. IPAMS has since extended the contract on a month-to-month basis.

"The whole intent was to put the resource professionals in the field office to help with the backlog," said IPAMS spokeswoman Kathleen Eccleston. "It was always intended, and is intended, to be a stopgap measure until the field office can work through its staffing shortage."

The Vernal office is the second-busiest in the country behind the Buffalo, Wyo., office. Last year, it received roughly 1,100 applications to drill and was able to process 700. This year it is on pace to receive about 1,200 applications, but because of budget cuts and the need to monitor the new wells, it anticipated processing about 500 permits.

Stringer said the consultants have eased the workload enough that Vernal should be able to match the 700 permits processed last year and cut into the enforcement backlog created by the oil and gas boom.

In a perfect world, Stringer says, the arrangement wouldn't be necessary, "but we don't have a perfect world, so what I'm saying is I'll do the best I can with what you give me."

Last month, the Vernal office received additional funds and used $50,000 to hire two of the SWCA consultants itself, rather than rely on the IPAMS contract. Stringer said he would do the same with the rest of the SWCA employees if the money were available.

Other BLM field offices have experimented with the hosted worker program, including the Nevada office and two Wyoming field offices, but it is the first time it has been tried in Utah.

Stringer said he has taken pains to ensure the objectivity of the consultants' work, since ultimately, BLM has to stand by it.

The consultants can be assigned to any project and there is no way for them to know if the projects they work on affect companies paying their salaries. Their work is reviewed by BLM staff and they are not in a position to make any final decisions.

"I don't know how much better to insulate it," Stringer said. "There is no opportunity whatsoever for a hosted worker or even a general staff employee who may have a bent one way or the other to unduly influence a decision."

SWCA is writing the Vernal office's resource management plan and has done work for the Moab and Richfield offices under direct contracts with BLM.

"Our source of credibility is that we continually generate sound science," said SWCA's managing principal, Cathryn Collis. "We would certainly never want to be in a situation where that's compromised."

But Bloch says there is evidence the BLM's work is suffering. He points to an environmental assessment done on a proposal to drill nine wells in a proposed wilderness area known as the Rock House project.

Four of the industry-sponsored consultants did work on the project, which Bloch said has serious shortcomings.

Stringer admits there were problems with the assessment, but it was not the fault of the consultants. He said the office plans to re-work the assessment and re-release it for public comment.