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Keep Rigs out of Bridger-Teton
Located west of Pinedale, the Wyoming Range features world-class big game habitat, scenic roadless areas, several eligible wild and scenic rivers, and outstanding hunting and fishing areas. Incredibly, the U.S. Forest Service is pushing to open 157,000 acres of this area to oil and gas development.
With 77 percent of oil and gas leases in the state going idle, there is no reason to sacrifice this special area to the oil industry. Please ask the Forest Service to reconsider their decision. Add a few words of your own to our letter, below, then click on Send this Message.
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: No oil and gas leasing in Bridger Teton!
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I am writing to urge you to reconsider your decision to issue oil and gas leases on the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Wyoming Range. Before you make a decision with such far-reaching consequences, the National Environmental Policy Act requires a more thorough and current environmental review than the 12-year-old review you are relying on here.
The area you propose to lease contains rare natural values far too precious to be sacrificed for the ephemeral benefits of natural gas production. This land provides vital big game habitat treasured by all wildlife enthusiasts. Much of it is untrammeled, wilderness-quality backcountry, a haven both for solitude-seeking humans and for protected species, such as lynx, wolverine, gray wolf and grizzly bear. Its streams harbor some of the last populations of native Colorado River cutthroat trout in Wyoming.
Rampant development on neighboring Bureau of Land Management land in the Upper Green River Valley has already brought excruciating pressure to bear on these species. There is no justification for releasing any more of the Bridger-Teton to the oil and gas industry. That is especially the case in light of the abundance of undeveloped leases that already exist throughout Wyoming.
Nearly two-thirds of the land to be leased is without roads, and the Roadless Area Conservation Rule requires that you keep it that way. You should take no action to allow road building in these now-roadless areas while the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reviews the Wyoming court decision enjoining the Roadless Rule.
Finally, no new leasing decisions should be made until after the forest updates its Land and Resource Management Plan. And none should be made until after you complete a thorough environmental impact statement, such as the one you completed last year before deciding to withdraw 376,000 acres in the northern portion of the forest from oil and gas leasing.
Sincerely,
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Campaign Launched:
August 24, 2004
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Located west of Pinedale, the Wyoming Range features world-class big game habitat, scenic roadless areas, several eligible wild and scenic rivers, and outstanding hunting and fishing areas. Opening this area to leasing could lead to major environmental impacts, since once public land has been leased for oil and gas exploration, land managers have little power to stop extensive development.
A Truly Special Place-For People and Wildlife
Before inviting in the bulldozers, drill rigs, roads, and pipelines, federal land managers should take into account what will be lost if the tributary watersheds of the Green, Greys and Hoback rivers become an industrialized gas field. This scenic area, popular for big game hunting, is a mosaic of aspen and coniferous forests and open grasslands. It provides vital year-round habitat for elk, pronghorn, moose and mule deer and is particularly vital for elk during calving season. Streams here harbor some of Wyoming's last populations of native Colorado River cutthroat trout and are a stronghold for Snake River cutthroat. Other imperiled species that find refuge here include northern goshawk, Canada lynx, gray wolf, wolverine and grizzly bear. Some 92,000 acres of the proposed leases (nearly two-thirds of the total) remain very wild, with no roads whatsoever.
Enough is Enough
Now is not the time for the Forest Service to be opening huge areas of the Wyoming Range to leasing. Seventy-seven percent of oil and gas leases in the state, covering some 11.7 million acres as of 2002, have not been used by industry. Thus, there is plenty of terrain open to development without destroying the wildflower-filled meadows, old growth forests and streams of the Wyoming Range.
BLM lands in the Upper Green River Valley already host more than 3,000 natural gas wells, with thousands more on the way and 75 percent of the valley currently under lease. And yet the Bridger-Teton has decided to lease a vast swath of immediately adjacent territory without undertaking a thorough environmental review and without revising the outdated forest plan, and with no public input of any kind.
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