Imperiled California Desert Tortoise ‘Under Siege’

Posted on the Western Watersheds blog. Imperiled California Desert Tortoise ‘Under Siege’

Upper Green River Valley air pollution blamed on drilling industry

Here is more on the striking decline in air quality in the Pinedale, Wyoming area.

Pollution blamed on drilling industry. Associated Press

More on May 12. Once-idyllic Pinedale is ground zero in debate over energy quest, quality of life
By Brandon Griggs. The Salt Lake Tribune

Owyhees bill hits a new snag

Owyhees bill hits a new snag. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.

Efforts to move the headwaters of the Snake River into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System could derail Idaho Senator Mike Crapo’s Owyhees bill.

Once again the person troubling Crapo is Idaho’s other “more famous” senator, Larry Craig.

Craig who voted against protecting the Wyoming Range from gas drilling is also opposing the efforts of Wyoming’s senators to protect the Snake River (and many of its headwaters streams in Wyoming). Craig’s objection is about the stretch of the main Snake downstream from Jackson Lake (actually a reservoir).

Downstream irrigators in Idaho hold almost all the water rights to the Snake River. Craig thinks the protection bill as passed by the key Senate Committee, supported by Wyoming’s senators, will somehow hurt the interests of Idaho irrigators. The problem for Crapo arises if the Owyhee bill and the Snake River bill are put into a public lands legislative package. Democrats may drop the Owyhee bill from the package if the Republicans keep wrangling among themselves.

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More on this: Idaho irrigators fight Wyo effort. Casper Star Tribune.

Added May 11. Additional information on one of the reasons why the Owyhees matter to more than the livestock industry. Idaho, Oregon desert canyonlands offer early-season camping with amazing views. By Pete Zimowsky. Idaho Statesman.

Key U.S. Senate Committee passes bill to protect the Wyoming Range mountains

Here is some good news.

The U. S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday passed a bill closing 1.2 million (!!) acres of the Wyoming Range mountains to natural gas exploration and production. This highly scenic, unstable, and wildlife rich mountain range is west of Big Piney and Daniel and south of Jackson, Wyoming. Little known outside the state of Wyoming, it is one of those rare places favored for protection from the oil industry by a state’s two Republican senators, a fact that moved it through the Senate Committee.

It still needs full Senate approval and action by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The area to the Range’s the east, the Green River Basin, has become a major natural gas production area of the United States. The Wyoming Range is also favorable to gas deposits, but its complex Overthrust Belt geology means the gas fields will be harder to find and broken up. The gas is likely to be sour (laced with deadly hydrogen sulfide gas), and exploration and production horribly corrupting of the landscape.

“Under the Wyoming Range Legacy Act of 2007, no additional oil and gas leasing, mining patents or geothermal leasing would be allowed in the 100-mile-long area of the range that is part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming.” Read the rest in the Casper Star Tribune. By Noelle Straub. Star-Tribune Washington bureau

Some photos, I posted to Panaramio of parts of the Wyoming Range included in this legislation.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1901416
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1902488
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1995409
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6194709
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6210892
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6224555
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6225358

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.

Don’t Help….Yellowstone geotourism map

National Geographic Society’s Center for Sustainable Destinations, in partnership with several conservation and tourism organizations (click here to see full list ), most notably Wyoming Travel and Tourism have launched a giant “geotourism” program for the Greater Yellowstone Region (click here for the main page of the project website). The effort is intended to “celebrate and help sustain the world-class natural and cultural heritage” of the Greater Yellowstone region (click here for the press release).

The project’s centerpiece is, “a community based process will create a National Geographic ‘Geotourism MapGuide’ for the region centered on Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, and including communities and private and public lands in the three partner states.” In sum, National Geographic and their partners intend to give Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho an economic shot in the arm, in the form of well-heeled tourists, many from Europe, visiting the Greater Yellowstone region. Clearly, these three states couldn’t be more deserving, right?

On Energy Development, Hunters and Anglers Push Back

On Energy Development, Hunters and Anglers Push Back. By Chris Hunt. New West.

Hunt also introduces us to a new group, Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development.