More protest leases
By BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune correspondent Three Wyoming conservation groups met a Monday deadline to protest various energy leases to be sold by the Bureau of Land Management. The Wyoming Outdoor Council and Audubon Wyoming filed a protest regarding 33,000 acres proposed for energy leasing in the Saratoga Valley. At the same time, Trout Unlimited has formally protested an even bigger chunk of BLM leases across Wyoming, including leases the group says could imperil important trout fisheries in the North Platte, Green and Yellowstone river drainages. The BLM plans to conduct a lease sale of 244,000 acres on Dec. 4, which will open up drilling access to public lands in Carbon, Sweetwater, Uinta, Park and Big Horn counties. Laurie Milford, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, said she wants the Saratoga Valley leases “off the table.” “We think the Bureau of Land Management has not put enough forethought into the impacts leasing in the Saratoga Valley will have,” she said. “Even exploration in this area could threaten what is truly a jewel of Wyoming and the country.” Wyoming Audubon Executive Director Brian Rutledge said the only intelligent way to do leasing would be to assess first and see if leasing is appropriate, and that was not the case this time. “Getting 13 days to review the proposed lease sales with other sales all over the state is virtually designed to prevent appropriate review," he said. “No one at Audubon is saying don’t retrieve the gas; we’re saying do it correctly and carefully in areas that can sustain it, and this area cannot sustain it.” The effect this leasing could have on sage grouse is especially troubling to Audubon. Rutledge is a member of the governor’s sage grouse task force. He says the proposed leases are home to incredibly important habitat for the bird. “We need to make it abundantly clear that if we continue with business as usual between the BLM and industry, we will end up with this bird on the endangered species list," Rutledge said. Milford and Rutledge said they do not believe that a late 1980s resource management plan for the area adequately concerns new issues, concerns and science -- especially a natural gas play that would go after deep coal-bed methane. Production of coal-bed methane generally involves discharge of significant volumes of groundwater, some of which can be damaging to soils. For Trout Unlimited, areas of concern include: * Parcels in Carbon County are near the North Platte and Encampment rivers, two trophy trout streams that attract anglers every year to the region. * Parcels in Sweetwater and Uinta counties are in native Colorado River cutthroat trout habitat, where industrial drilling activity could be detrimental to these populations of rare trout. * In Park County, two of the proposed leases would be situated along tributaries of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River in prime habitat for increasingly threatened Yellowstone cutthroat trout. * Leases for sale in Big Horn County are likely candidates for coal-bed methane development, and some of the parcels are near the Greybull River, also a native Yellowstone cutthroat stream. “Development of these leases could have a lasting negative impact on wild and native trout from one end of Wyoming to the other,” said Kathy Lynch, TU’s Rocky Mountain energy counsel, who is based in Jackson. “Trout Unlimited supports responsible development of domestic energy supplies. But there seems to be such a rush to lease this ground, and very little attention is being given to existing above-ground resources, especially in light of new information available regarding the impacts of development on fish and wildlife populations.”
BLM response Steve Hall, spokesman for the Wyoming BLM, said the decision of whether certain lands should or should not be leased for energy development has already been made in regional resource management plans. Several regions are in the process of updating their resource management plans. He acknowledged that some of the state’s resource management plans are 20 years old and that conditions and science change. That’s why protests and public comment are important, Hall said: They bring new information to light. Rutledge counters that “antique resource management plans” constitute “a rigged deck.” “Those old RMPs define gas development as minimal surface impact,” Rutledge said. “You’ve seen the Jonah Field, you’ve seen the Pinedale Anticline. Are those minimal surface impacts?” Rutledge said that when he came to Wyoming, he intended to work cooperatively with industry and BLM, but his efforts “have not been welcomed with open arms.” As a result, he and other conservation leaders are turning to protests and other adversarial tools “because we’ve realized the peril the state is in. We’re becoming more desperate and determined” to slow down an energy boom juggernaut. Industry view Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said he’s been seeing more protests and lawsuits, but noted that the pace of energy development has slowed down in Wyoming. “Last year we had 100-109 rigs in the state,” he said. “Today, we’re at 67-70.” He said he doesn’t know who’d go into the Saratoga Valley, which hasn’t had much energy activity to speak of. A deep coal-bed methane play would mean reinjecting the discharge water back into the ground. Only speculative wildcatters would be attracted to the Saratoga Valley, said Hinchey, and only one out of 10 wells would likely produce. He defended the industry as following environmental rules and regulations. As for concerns about trout fishing, Hinchey said Exxon is raising Colorado River cutthroat trout in a stream in the Wyoming Range.