This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Thousands of well sites. Hundreds of roads. Miles of pipeline. A horizon crowned with rigs. All of it fanning out, like some fantastic network of spider webs across the high valleys of the Rocky Mountain West.
Whether it's Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico or Colorado, natural gas development looks much the same. It's dusty. It's noisy. And it leaves giant footprints.
At the same time, the ground that makes up the West's oil and gas patches supports a complex ecosystem that nurtures vital wildlife, plant habitat and cultural sites. Rangeland, wild horses, wilderness, wildlife, fisheries, threatened and endangered plant species, wetlands, archaeological resources, wild rivers, recreation and ranching must coexist with the Rockies' biggest energy boom in decades.
But how?
"It's not easy," said Steve Belinda, a Wyoming-based biologist with the Bureau of Land Management. "It makes you want to pull your hair out."
The energy companies drilling for oil and gas have pledged to be good environmental partners, and in many instances, are taking measures - often at great expense - to make good on their word. But so many leases and permits have been authorized by the BLM under the Bush administration, and so many more are on the way, even understanding the potential for environmental consequences is a massive task.
Overseeing millions of acres of public land in the region, the BLM has the outsized task of balancing multiple uses it oversees, and is doing a good job even in this frenzied energy development climate, insisted Prill Mecham, regional supervisor of the BLM's Pinedale, Wyo., field office.
"We're not talking about balance on every acre, but overall," she said.
Environmentalists and biologists aren't reassured. Earlier this month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, released a report that found that the overload of drilling permit applications has kept agency staffers from meeting their environmental protection obligations.
"We think the BLM crossed the threshold a long time ago as far as upholding its edict to not allow the degradation of public lands," said Erik Molvar, a biologist with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance based in Laramie, Wyo.
To speed oil and gas development even more, Congress included in the national energy policy bill that passed Friday provisions that will make it easier for oil and gas explorers to get around the Clean Water Act and Water Pollution Control Act.
Studies in Wyoming's Upper Green River Valley show that mule deer are avoiding parts of their historic winter range due to the presence of well pads and roads, said Wyoming Game and Fish biologist Scott Smith. Pronghorn antelope also are staying clear of developed areas. And sage grouse breeding areas appear to be in decline around well sites.
Energy companies, particularly Shell, Questar, Bill Barrett Corp. and EnCana, are making serious efforts to respond to trouble, though sometimes with mixed results.
If their operations are hurting the environment, "the companies will have to do things differently," said Ron Hogan, general manager of Questar's Pinedale division. "But we want to see it based on science, not emotions."
Directional drilling, in which multiple wells are drilled from one well pad, and pipelines can reduce the number of roads, which are choked with traffic, noise and dust at peak periods. Injection wells and pipelines are being proposed for moving wastewater and petroleum condensate away from relatively small wellheads instead of leaving unsightly waste tanks on site.
The energy companies maintain they could minimize many environmental problems if they could drill year-round, instead of having to endure BLM's wildlife protection-related winter shutdowns.
"Winter drilling would actually decrease the size of our footprint," says Hogan. "Instead of 14 or 15 rigs in the summer, we could get away with five or six year-round."
Environmentalists acknowledge their ability to influence these types of decisions is limited.
"The environmental groups are in a dilemma," said Randy Udall, director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency in Aspen, Colo. "They know they can't stop it. So their push now is to make sure [energy development] is done right."
Stephen Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, says that despite some energy companies' claims, environmental advocates are not trying to stop all drilling on public lands.
But SUWA fears the number of leases already issued but not yet in production - only about a quarter of the 4 million acres of oil and gas leases in Utah are being worked - bodes an increase in environmental problems. SUWA wants to prevent further leases on the 9.1 million acres of Utah lands that would be covered under America's Red Rock Wilderness Act should the 2004 bill ever make it through Congress. SUWA claims that recoverable gas and oil on those lands would amount to less than four weeks' supply of natural gas and roughly four days of oil at current consumption levels.