Local residents in southwestern Wyoming are concerned that seismic
exploration, wildcat drilling and the planned lease of 6,700 acres in
the Little Mountain area next week are leading to the buildup of a
major new field in an area prized for its wildlife habitat.
The Bureau of Land Management will offer approximately 169,000 acres
for oil and gas leases at its Aug. 5 lease sale, but the parcels in the
Little Mountain area have garnered the most attention. The parcels
include an area on the west slope of Little Mountain at the headwaters
of the middle and west forks of Currant Creek, parts of Wildhorse Draw
and checkerboard areas along Currant Creek just a mile upstream from
where it enters the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
"Anybody that would lease gas in the Little Mountain area south of
Rock Springs is the type of person who would pull the wings off a
butterfly," said Walt Gasson, executive director of the Wyoming
Wildlife Federation.
Little Mountain is best known for its
big game, including mule deer, elk and antelope, making it a prized
hunting destination. Four hundred deer licenses and 250 antelope
licenses will be offered in the area this year. And the chances of a
Wyoming resident drawing a license to hunt bull elk in the Little
Mountain Area are less than 4 percent, according to Gasson.
"It
might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Gasson said. "But if you
apply for this elk license, and lo and behold, the stars line up
correctly and you get it, only to find out that somebody has been in
there all summer long creating a disturbance and the elk have all blown
off to Meeker, Colo., and Salt Lake City, your once-in-a-lifetime
experience literally just went south."
That is something
Gasson and other Wyoming residents do not want to see happen, so they
have protested the parcels in the Little Mountain area in the hope that
the Bureau of Land Management will spare the area from further energy
development. The residents worry that oil and gas development could
threaten the area's elk hunting, scenic values and trout fisheries and
undermine all the hard work that has gone into making Little Mountain
such a special place for wildlife.
Environmental groups
and state and federal agencies -- including BLM and the Wyoming Game
and Fish Department -- have spent nearly $1.5 million since 1990 on
habitat restoration projects in the area. In addition to its big game
species, Little Mountain also provides habitat for rare species such as
Colorado River cutthroat trout and sage grouse.
"It's one
of those special places that should be left alone," said Rock Springs
City Councilwoman Joyce Corcoran. "There are so many other areas where
[the energy companies] can go and drill to their hearts' content, but
there are certain places they just shouldn't go into. I don't know why
they don't understand that."
Little Mountain has become
the latest front in the battle against oil and gas development in
southwestern Wyoming, spurred by concerns about Devon Energy Co.'s
plans to conduct an exploratory drilling project on the mountain. As
part of the two-well exploratory project, Devon has also been
conducting a three-dimensional seismic survey near Little Mountain and
is in the process of drilling the first well.
The project
and the seismic testing sparked an outcry from local residents,
hunters, blue-collar workers and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), who
feared the wildcat project could lead to full-scale development of the
area.
To assuage some of those concerns, Devon has taken
steps to protect the area, including transporting its workers and
equipment via helicopter rather than trucks and agreeing not to use the
helicopters at all during the hunting season, according to Devon
spokeswoman Alesha Leemaster. Additionally, instead of taking on the
entire project at once, the company has agreed to complete it in stages
to reduce impacts to the environment.
"It cost us a lot
more to do it that way, but it's the right thing to do to preserve
habitat and the hunting season for the avid hunters in the state,"
Leemaster said.
Other protests
BLM received a total of 11 protests of
the Aug. 5 lease sale, but the agency intends to move forward with the
lease auction, according to Pamela Lewis, chief of the Wyoming BLM's
branch of fluid minerals adjudication.
"It's been our policy to always proceed with the sale and advise the
public that we've received protests but have not had the opportunity to
look at their merits," Lewis said. "We'll continue to offer these
parcels, and once we've looked at the merits of the protests, it's
possible these leases would not be issued."
Wyoming BLM
has just completed reviewing the protests from the December 2007 lease
auction and is now working on protests from the February auction, Lewis
said.
Environmental groups filing protests against the
lease sale include the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, the Theodore
Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited and the Wyoming
Wildlife Federation.
The TRCP protest covers approximately
110,000 acres comprising big-game migration corridors and crucial
winter range, important sage grouse habitat and sensitive trout
fisheries.
Recent research on sage grouse, currently being
considered by the Fish and Wildlife Service for protection under the
Endangered Species Act, identifies population declines associated with
energy development activities. As such, environmental groups maintain
that better management of sage grouse during energy development on
federal lands could avert an endangered listing of the popular upland
game bird. In June, TRCP and the North American Grouse Partnership
formally requested that the Interior Department undertake conservation
measures for sage grouse habitat on BLM-administered lands.
Dwayne
Meadows, TRCP's Wyoming field representative, said that the overlapping
crucial winter range for elk and mule deer, as well as Colorado River
cutthroat trout and sage grouse habitat, prompted the group to protest
the leases. Although many of the leases include stipulations to protect
wildlife, Meadows said BLM waives those restrictions too often, noting
rates as high as 80 percent in the Rawlins Field Office.
"With these high exception rates on stipulations, the protections just aren't adequate," Meadows said.
Environmental
groups also expressed concerns that energy development in some of the
parcels could have adverse effects on water resources and aquatic life,
including Colorado River cutthroat trout, which BLM considers a
"sensitive species."
Trout Unlimited's protest notes that
leasing in the Little Mountain area could harm important conservation
populations of the trout and undermine work that has been done to
improve riparian habitat on Currant Creek and Trout Creek.
"We're
very, very concerned that oil and gas development will impact those
sensitive regimes that are established down there," said Cathy Purves
of Trout Unlimited.
In addition to the parcels in the
Little Mountain area, Trout Unlimited's protest includes parcels just
north of Rock Springs near the Big Sandy River and near the
Colorado-Wyoming border. Purves said Trout Unlimited is concerned about
the proximity of some of the parcels to the Big Sandy and possible
groundwater contamination resulting from gas drilling.
Near
the Colorado-Wyoming border, the concern is about the effects of
coalbed methane development on fisheries in the Little Snake River
drainage, particularly Savery Creek. There are five CBM wells in the
immediate vicinity of the three parcels nominated for lease in Wyoming,
as well as 20 active wells just across the border in Colorado, and
another half-dozen pending approval by BLM.
The Little
Snake River Conservation District has spent more than $600,000 on
habitat improvements and stream modifications to Savery Creek to
enhance fish migration and spawning, and stabilize vegetation in the
area. Trout Unlimited worries that CBM development could lead to
increased erosion and sedimentation, as well as degradation of water
quality and changes to stream morphology from surface discharge or
impoundment of water produced during development.
Gable is an independent energy and environmental writer in Woodland Park, Colo.
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