A new Bureau of Land Management plan
could re-open the door to oil, gas and coalbed methane leasing on
over 432,000 acres of the Jack Morrow Hills, the heart of
southwestern Wyoming’s Red Desert.
The hills are
home to a migratory herd of 48,000 antelope, a rare desert elk
population, and seven areas being studied for wilderness
protection. Half of the land has existing mineral leases, but the
BLM suspended development in 1998, while it completed a management
plan for the hills’ 574,000 federal acres. In 2000, following
citizen protest over the initial plan, then-Secretary of the
Interior Bruce Babbitt visited the Red Desert and ordered the BLM
to consider protecting the Hills from future leasing (HCN, 11/5/01:
Cattle make way for tortoises in the Mojave).
The new
plan, released this February, is “the best mix of
everything,” says BLM project leader Renee Dana. It advises
drilling 46 wells every 5 years, and a case-by-case evaluation of
the location and timing of drilling. Dru Bower, vice president of
the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, finds such staged development
“problematic.” If oil prices go up, she says, then the
industry should immediately be able to develop its leases.
But Mac Blewer, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council,
says the BLM should halt new mineral development in the Hills, and
buy out existing leases. “We are not in a position to
compromise,” says Blewer. “Industry has had its way
everywhere else in Wyoming.”
The public can read and
comment on the proposed plan online at www.wy.blm.gov/jmhcap until
May 23, 2003. The final plan is due by the end of this
year.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fate of the Red Desert up in the air.
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