In the West, mining’s return faces resistance

In the West, mining’s return faces resistance. The region’s newcomers, who came for high-tech jobs and scenery, worry about ecological costs. By Ben Arnoldy. Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.
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While there is an economic need for more copper, nickel, tin, etc, there is no need for more gold. Gold is unique because its price is more relevant as a store of wealth (gold investments as an alternative to stocks, bonds, etc.) than as an industrial material. More mining, means more gold, and this is not necessarily a benefit.

However, gold mining is the most destructive of new mines cropping up all over the West and the world. In opposing a new gold mine, you do not have to fight economic arguments about “the need” for a metal.

Sublette County, Wyoming - A peaceful protest on the Pinedale Anticline

In a county that as gone from just a few gas well to one with more wells than residents, there is a protest demonstration scheduled today, Sunday.

The Casper Star Tribune reports that a “retired high school science teacher Elaine Crumpley has helped organize what she’s calling a ‘peaceful protest.’ ” It will be from 1 to 3 p.m. on the Pinedale Anticline, the hill on top of the gas rich geological structure just west of the town of Pinedale.  The protest is to call attention to the proposed gas-field development plan.

Drilling on the Anticline and nearby fields, such as the huge Jonah gas field, has brought standard breaking ozone air pollution and the resulting smog, disruption of wildlife, and damage to ten of thousands of acres of high desert to the formerly scenic upper Green River valley.

Story in the Casper Star Tribune. By Chris Merrill.

GYC alert to stop creation of yet another!! Wyoming elk feedlot

Good for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition on this! This alert gives the information and allows you to send an easy eletter against yet another disease-spreading elk feedlot in the Gros Ventre River drainage (of course, your completely personalized letter is always better).

Energy Leases advance in Wyoming Range mountains despite recent revelations

Energy leasing advances. Controversy fails to stop Bridger-Teton. By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole News and Guide.

Earlier story on this (April 23). Wyoming Governor: Forest deal ‘suspect’. Federal government gave energy company broad influence over study of Wyo. Range. Jackson Hole News and Guide.

Arizona Game and Fish: confusing and error-filled statements about bighorn and desert cougars at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

If you are not familiar with Kofa, it is huge, almost 700,000 acres.

However, the bighorn have been struggling there, but their numbers are now increasing, a fact the AZ F & G ignored as they announced, but may not honor, a one-year moratorium on removal of desert cougars in the area (perhaps 3 are left).

Blog on the issue.

From PEER. Arizona Game Agency Scapegoats Cougars For Bighorn Travails

Happy Earth Day, How About An Oil Lease?

Diary of a Mad Voter. Happy Earth Day, How About An Oil Lease? By Joan McCarter. New West.

The vast “resources” of oil shale in Utah and Colorado have been hyped for perhaps a hundred years, but no one has figured out how to get this “oil*”  our of the rocks in an economic manner or how to deal with the environmental impacts that will probably dwarf the impacts of oil sands mining in Alberta.

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* Note: the oil in oil shale is actually kerogen, which consists of a changing variety of various organic chemicals.

Governor Freudenthal says drilling industry has too much influence over gas leasing

Governor: Forest deal ‘suspect’ - Federal government gave energy company broad influence over study of Wyoming Range. By Noah Brenner and Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole, Wyo. Jackson Hole News and Guide.

In the process of drilling a well on public land, granting of the lease is the most important legal step. Once the lease is granted, it is almost impossible to stop a well from being drilled short of buying back the lease.

When the government gives a lease or sells a lease, it has transferred a property right. If the Forest Service is in bed with the drilling industry to issue leases without proper analysis, it is actually a form of theft from the public.

Good to see the governor taking some action to protect the Wyoming mountain range. This is a very unstable mountain range. It is subject to mass movement (landslides of all sizes when roads are built). It is also a very scenic range and just full of elk. It could also have a large bighorn sheep herd and lots of wolves and bears, but the livestock industry, especially the sheep industry has kept the bighorns in jeopardy, put the wolves of the area into Wyoming’s new wolf-are-now-vermin zone, and have kept black bear numbers low.

Recovering From Wyoming’s Energy Bender.

This is an op-ed piece in the New York Times giving some uncomfortable truths about Wyoming (uncomfortable to those who believe the official mythology).

Recovering From Wyoming’s Energy Bender. By Alexandra Fuller (Wilson, Wyoming). New York Times.