WORLAND, Wyo. – Colored balloons decorating the Elks
Club here April 3 did little to lighten the hostile atmosphere of a
public hearing on the BLM’s new plan for managing a million acres
in northwest Wyoming.
The area is called Grass
Creek, and it takes in roughly a third of the Bighorn Basin,
ranging from desert to the alpine ridges of the Absaroka Range. It
contains spectacular badlands, four wilderness study areas, two
rock-art sites and a potential wild and scenic
river.
Few people live here, but this lonely
country in the shadow of Yellowstone National Park contains
thousands of mule deer and pronghorn antelope as well as elk,
bighorn sheep, moose, black bear and mountain lion.
Grass Creek also contains 26 active
oilfields.
At the hearing, which lasted five
hours, some 40 people lambasted the Bureau of Land Management’s
alternatives. In the front of the room, the plan’s authors sat in
uncomfortable silence.
The petroleum industry
criticized the agency’s proposal to protect 17,100 acres of the
mountainous Upper Owl Creek region from surface occupancy by their
rigs and to impose timing and surface-use restrictions on other
lands important to wildlife.
Many worried about
losing tax revenue if oil exploration were discouraged by
environmental restrictions. “Tourism will never pay the bills in
Wyoming,” said Bighorn County Commissioner Ray
Peterson.
Ranching is only a small part of the
local economy, and not all permits are fully used now, area manager
Joe Vessels has said. But residents expressed alarm that grazing
would be reduced under each of the agency’s four alternatives.
Rancher Dennis Jones predicted that the agency’s plans “would be
devastating to the entire Bighorn Basin.”
The
hearing was a clean sweep for what used to be called the Sagebrush
Rebellion. Several people questioned the right of the federal
govenment to manage public land in Wyoming at all; others said the
plan smacked of collusion between the Interior Department and
environmentalists.
William Kraft, of Greybull,
said it was a step toward creating “a huge Western park … that no
one will be able to use because it conflicts with nature.”
Where were the environmentalists? “We didn’t
want to send any sacrificial lambs into what was completely a
set-up,” said Tom Throop, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor
Council. Throop said the council, the Sierra Club and the Greater
Yellowstone Coalition will send extensive written comments to the
BLM.
Wyoming Outdoor Council staffer Dan Heilig
added that the BLM showed backbone in proposing three areas of
critical environmental concern. But Heilig said he could not
understand how all four alternatives in the plan proposed to
continue the present practice of leasing almost every acre for oil
and gas.
*Lynne
Bama
Lynne Bama writes in
Wapiti, Wyoming.
For more
information or to comment by May 7 on the Grass Creek Resource Area
Resource Management Plan and Draft EIS write to BLM, Bob Ross, team
leader, Box 119, Worland WY 82401. For the Wyoming Outdoor
Council’s analysis of the plan write to WOC, 201 Main, Lander, WY
82520 (307/332-7031).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A grim Wyoming hearing for BLM and greens.
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