The announcement this June that Wyoming
Gov. Dave Freudenthal opposed new oil and gas leases in the Upper
Green River Valley startled both conservation groups and the oil
industry. After all, Wyoming is one of the few states fortunate
enough not to face a budget crisis because of oil and gas
royalties.
Yet, in the state’s fastest-growing
county of Sublette, even pro-development locals were having second
thoughts about one more gas field. Rob Shaul, editor of the
Pinedale Roundup, said in a recent editorial:
“Sublette County has a rich and proud heritage of oil and gas
development. But today, we’re taking a stand against the
future development of oil and gas (on federal land) in Sublette
County.”
Others have become even more emphatic. In a
letter to the editor of the community paper, Maggie Palmer of
Pinedale wrote, “When the oil prices plummet, and eventually they
will, the oil companies will be gone quicker than fire through a
gas line, and all of us will be left picking up the pieces of our
destroyed local economy — not to mention the plunder and
pillage of our public lands.”
Bounded by the Wind River
Mountains on the east and the Wyoming Range on the west, the Upper
Green River Valley is home to one of America’s greatest
wildlife concentrations. It is also, by a twist of geological fate,
underlaid by one of America’s greatest concentrations of
natural gas. Oil and gas development has so thoroughly dominated
the region that 93 percent of the Pinedale Resource Area is
currently under lease.
The Bureau of Land
Management’s scenario for “reasonable foreseeable
development” calls for 10,000 new wells in the next 10-15 years
— more than three times the number of wells in current
production.
Perhaps Gov. Freudenthal’s statement of
opposition to new leases had its genesis at the recent Wyoming
Conservation Congress, held in Pinedale four months ago. Nearly 300
people showed up, filling every hotel room in town. When
Freudenthal told the gathering, “I do not intend to preside over
the end of wildlife in this state,” you’d have thought wild
applause would have broken out. Instead, the response was merely
polite. The audience responded more enthusiastically to sportsman
Craig Thomson, who said flatly: “Wildlife is a huge portion of
Wyoming’s soul, and it’s not for sale.”
The
flashpoint of this new bout of federal leasing is Trappers Point, a
hill just west of Pinedale where one of the Western
Hemisphere’s greatest wildlife migrations occurs (only the
caribou trek more miles). Wyoming’s pronghorn herds migrate
170 miles, from Grand Teton National Park, south to their wintering
grounds in the upper Green River Valley. Along the way, the animals
— often called antelope — pass through Trappers Point,
one of three migration bottlenecks made narrower by a new
subdivision that reduces the bottleneck to less than a half-mile
wide.
The Pinedale Anticline rises just east of Pinedale,
and it is an area inhabited mainly by deer, pronghorn and sage
grouse. Leasing on the Anticline was granted with the stipulation
that drilling activity would cease during the winter to allow for
wildlife to use this crucial winter range.
Yet, the gas
companies routinely ask for, and receive, exceptions. In a move
that outraged local conservationists, the Bureau of Land Management
granted nearly 100 percent of requested exemptions.
Farther to the south lies the aptly named Jonah Field, considered
one of the richest gas fields in the West. Here, the entire
landscape has been converted into an industrialized zone, with well
pads spaced every 80 acres. Operators are currently seeking
approval for one well on every 16 acres. Seen from the air, the
developed field looks like a giant subdivision, with each
cul-de-sac leading to a drilling rig or compressor station.
One of the conference’s vivid images came from
wildlife biologist Hal Sawyer. He tracks the migration of pronghorn
using data gathered by Global Positioning Systems on radio-collared
animals. A bird’s-eye view showed pronghorn heading straight
for the Jonah Field along their traditional migration routes, then
making a right-angled dogleg around the gas field.
By
late afternoon of the second day, my head was full, and I left the
conference for a walk around town. I gazed up at the Pinedale
Anticline, forming the Western skyline. Already, one drilling rig
rises from across the river, and I pictured a skyline filled with
many more, drilling through the night.
Greg
Gordon is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). He lives and writes in Gardiner,
Montana.
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