PINEDALE, Wyo. — Wyoming's Upper Green River Valley lies in the shadows
of three mountain ranges, fed by streams that contain some of the last
pure strains of Colorado River cutthroat trout. Pronghorn antelope and
mule deer find winter refuge here, and sage grouse use the valley for
breeding.
But this American Serengeti also holds one of the nation's largest
reserves of natural gas. Drilling rigs dot the landscape, towering over
the flattened remains of sagebrush that once covered much of this
7-million-acre valley. The evidence of the energy boom is everywhere
here, from the spiderweb of roads and pipelines to the noise and lights
of heavy machinery.
The 30,000-acre Jonah Field is dwarfed by the vastness of this
landscape, but the intensity of development here has made it a poster
child for drilling gone wrong for environmental groups. The Bureau of
Land Management approved a plan in 2006 that would bring an additional
3,100 wells in a field already containing 500, disturbing an additional
16,200 acres and increasing well pad density to 64 wells per square
mile.
To lessen the effects from this development, BLM approved a
$24.5 million, six-year off-site mitigation project paid for by EnCana
Oil and Gas USA, which owns most of the leases on the Jonah Field.
The effort is headed up by the Jonah Interagency Field Office
(JIO), a multi-agency team that manages the mitigation fund and
includes representatives from BLM, the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department, Wyoming Department of Agriculture and Wyoming Department of
Environmental Quality.
The outcome of this project holds implications for future
energy development in the Interior West, much of which contains tight
sandstone or tight shale gas reservoirs similar to those found in
Jonah. Such high-density drilling projects are already being replicated
in the 8,950-well Continental Divide-Creston Project in Wyoming's Red
Desert and the 4,200-well Hiawatha Project along the Wyoming-Colorado
border.
BLM is also considering an off-site mitigation fund to offset
the effects of the additional 4,400 wells that energy companies want to
drill in the Pinedale Anticline, which borders the Jonah Field.
"The JIO was the first attempt, so in that sense, it's
precedent-setting," said Merry Gamper, a supervisory natural resource
specialist in BLM's Pinedale, Wyo., office. "We'll probably see it
evolve in other states if it's successful."
Since it got off the ground last year, the JIO has approved
nearly $3.5 million in funding for 13 projects. Much of that funding —
more than $1.3 million — was awarded earlier this year for the purchase
of a conservation easement on 2,052 acres.
Dan Stroud, Wyoming Game and Fish's representative to the
interagency office, said it is "a little too early" to tell whether the
projects have been effective, but the office does plan to monitor their
effectiveness. One problem they have encountered so far is getting
funding for a baseline inventory. "Without knowing where you're at
right now, it's hard to know where you want to go and how to get
there," he said.
Linda Baker, local organizer for the Upper Green River Valley
Coalition, says the office is not doing a good job of looking at the
results of past projects. "We're throwing money at off-site mitigation
with no idea what's been done before and what has worked before and
what has not," she said.
"To say that off-site mitigation is going to offset the
impacts of on-site habitat fragmentation is to be completely unaware of
what's required," Baker added. "I don't think there's anybody in any of
the agencies or any of the oil and gas industry companies that know
what will work, how much money it will cost, how long it will take,
what species it will affect, and whether or not we have adequate
personnel to monitor, gather data, analyze data and report on all that
stuff. It's a totally haphazard process at this point, in my mind."
Sage grouse seen relocating
Development in the Jonah Field has been particularly
devastating for sage grouse, which have abandoned at least three
breeding areas, according to Baker.
Preserving sage grouse habitat is such an important issue for
hunting and conservation groups that Wyoming's governor recently
established a task force to deal with the issue. The panel's
recommendations, issued last month, call for curbing residential sprawl
and requiring mitigation measures to subdivision permits. The team also
recommended that the state minimize the footprint of energy development
through mat drilling and drilling multiple wells from one pad. The
state should develop incentives such as tax exemptions, streamlined
permitting and stipulation exceptions to achieve this goal, the team
said (Land Letter, Sept. 27).
Paul Ulrich of EnCana said his company is doing all that it
can to reduce the effects of drilling. For example, the company is
fracing remotely rather than at each individual well, using natural
gas-fired engines at the well sites to reduce harmful air emissions and
using specially designed flowback units that eliminate the need to
flare gas.
Additionally, instead of blading off sage brush and scraping
roads and well pads, EnCana lays down 1.75 to 2 acres of wooden oak
mats on top of the native vegetation to help protect it. The company
has enough mats to cover 300 acres overall.
Nevertheless, Ulrich acknowledged that there are some effects
from the development at the Jonah Field. "The bottom line is this: As
much as we can do here on-site, we still have a short-term impact," he
said.
Because of those unavoidable impacts, EnCana decided to look
toward off-site mitigation. But first, Ulrich said, EnCana wanted to
know whether such mitigation would prove effective. To figure that out,
the company did an 1,800-acre, off-site mitigation project about 10
miles south of the field in cooperation with a local rancher, BLM and
Wyoming Game and Fish that involved reconstructing a defunct reservoir
and sagebrush enhancements.
Monitoring of the project has shown that off-site mitigation
can be successful, Ulrich said. "The reservoir this year looked
fantastic. It was providing much-needed water and everything associated
with enhanced water for wildlife down there," he said.
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