WYOMING After 100 years of failed attempts to protect southwest Wyoming’s Red Desert, environmentalists say it’s do or die. Oil and gas companies plan to sink 10,000 to 15,000 wells by 2010, and a coalition of conservation groups, ranchers and outfitters doesn’t think the Bureau of Land Management’s plan will protect the area. Mac Blewer […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Efficient energy is efficient business
It is rare that business sense and environmental quality interest intersect to make a resource-use decision so obvious. But the recent rise in Northwest power prices has turned energy conservation into good business, says Lyn Oha Carey of Washington State University’s Cooperative Extension Energy Program. The program’s Energy Ideas Clearinghouse Web site offers many ways […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Colorado’s Coal Basin starts a new life
Students and the state help recover aformer miningtract
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
The Berkeley Pit gets deeper
MONTANA Skyrocketing electricity prices in Montana are indirectly raising the level of Butte’s Berkeley Pit, a 900-foot-deep, 30 billion-gallon soup of acid-mine runoff that ranks as the nation’s largest Superfund site. In mid-July, copper-mining company Montana Resources suddenly halted its Butte operations, blaming high electrical rates for the shutdown. During normal operations, the mine is […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Montana hunters blast game farms
Initiative 143 would kill canned huntingand hobble the elk industry
Posted inOctober 9, 2000: The hunters and the hunted
Another legacy of drought
WYOMING Yet another effect of this summer’s drought has reared its ugly head in Wyoming: An unusually high number of cattle in the Cowboy State contracted deadly sulfate-induced polio in the summer months. Merl Raisbeck of the University of Wyoming Veterinary Lab says that in an ordinary year he sees one or two polio cases […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘The industry’s philosophy has been to fragment the community’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Open for business.” Mike Foate, who ranches north of Arvada, Wyo., has developed a Web site – powderriverbasin.org. – for landowners concerned about coalbed methane development in the area. He says he decided to go online to try to get information out […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘There is a light at the end of the tunnel’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Open for business.” Byron and Marge Oedekoven, who own a ranch 12 miles north of Gillette, Wyo., have had a more positive experience with coalbed methane development on their property. Buteven though the company doing the development, Redstone Resources, worked with the […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Under pressure, Montana opts for a slower approach
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Open for business.” MILES CITY, Mont. – After it drains the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, the Tongue River flows north to join the Yellowstone near this eastern Montana city. The Tongue doesn’t carry a lot of water, but it’s a lifeline for […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Clean fuel, dirty neighbors
We should be a little grateful this time around. The West’s last energy boom threatened the region with mountains of spent oil shale, huge pits from which the rock had been taken, air pollution from coal gasification plants, and large ditches carrying Columbia River water into the Colorado River Basin. This latest energy boom is […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
The hope of a freshly planted field
Growing up, I often despised the cornfields surrounding my parents’ house outside of Bozeman, Mont. By the end of July, the plants rose to the sky, blocking our view and trapping their own musty sweat. When I pulled on patched jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, my eyes heavy at 6 a.m., the fields meant hard […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Colliding forces
Has Colorado’s oil and gas industry met its match?
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
How well do you know your wells?
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” Understanding methane-gas drilling isn’t easy. Here are some basics about what might be underground in a Western backyard. Conventional wells extract methane gas from sandstone 1,000 to 20,000 feet below the surface. Sitting in zucchini-shaped air pockets in the rock, […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘We need that gas’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” Ken Wonstolen of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, in his own words, says that Colorado is an energy-dependent state, and the methane gas it produces is greatly needed. “We live in an energy-dependent state. Unless we’re willing to give […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘It’s corporate greed’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” Arnold Mackley, who is fighting to protect his ranch from 20-acre well densities, was a Garfield County Commissioner from 1988 to 1996. He currently is a consultant for a nahcolite mining company, but he and his wife have plans to […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Status quo reigns in New Mexico
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” AZTEC, N.M. – Five miles below the Colorado border in Aztec, N.M., green-painted pumpjacks and oil wells line the highways like sentinels. Many residents of this town of fewer than 6,000 people say they worry about poor air quality, noise […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘It’s hard to keep fighting’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” Janey Hines runs the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance in Parachute, Colo.: “We have no idea how many wells will be here, or how many roads, because the oil and gas companies are not required to make a plan. Maybe it […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘The playing field has to be leveled’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Colliding forces.” Charles Micale owns the My Way Ranch in Collbran, Colo. In October 1999, Strachan Exploration Co. drilled a methane well at the ranch’s entranceway; since then, Micale has been fighting for more property rights for landowners who live above methane […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Open for business
Wyoming throws away its water to get out the gas
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
‘We became Michiwest’s sewer’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Open for business.” Earl and Sue Boardman’s ranch on the banks of the Powder River is dotted with gas wells owned by the Michigan-based company Michiwest. In 1999, Earl Boardman shot a video of the dry water wells, eroded arroyos, and quagmires […]