Biodiversity Conservation Alliance

At the eastern edge of the Red Desert, the Atlantic Rim is an oasis of prime wildlife habitat comparable to the Jack Morrow Hills. But the Bureau of Land Management is moving forward with a project that would convert the sensitive wildlife habitats of the Atlantic Rim to a massive industrial zone, stretching all the way from Rawlins to Baggs. The current proposal allows 2,000 coalbed methane and gas wells to be built as dense as 8 to a square mile (double the customary spacing), along with a spiderweb of new roads totaling 1,000 miles. The proposed project would obliterate most of the Wild Cow Creek citizens’ proposed wilderness, would degrade streams and water quality that impacts Endangered fishes downstream, and would essentially destroy many big game crucial winter ranges, important sage grouse breeding and nesting areas, and nesting concentration areas for hawks and eagles. The drilling pads and roads will be so dense, and the habitat fragmentation so severe, that few types of native wildlife will be able to survive in this quarter-million-acre stretch of the RedDesert!

Your help is needed to tell the BLM to protect the area’s most important habitats, sensitive watersheds, irreplaceable historical resources, and remaining wilderness. Send in a comment letter to the Rawlins BLM, or speak out at the public hearing on February 2nd. Tell the BLM that they need to:

Keep roads and drilling pads away from sage grouse leks (3 mile buffer), sharp-tailed grouse leks (1 mile), ferruginous hawk nests (2 miles), other raptor nests (1 mile), mountain plover nesting areas, 100-year floodplains, and prairie dog colonies;
Require the strongest protective measures to prevent the degradation of streams including underground injection of salty wastewater and to prevent saline runoff from roads and soils;
Use directional drilling to cluster well facilities and truly minimize the footprint of drilling;
Allow only a small proportion of the project area in an industrial state at any one time;
Keep roads and drilling at least 3 miles away from the historic Overland and Cherokee Trails; and
Remove the Wild Cow Creek proposed wilderness from the project, and prevent all industrial uses there.

Voice Your Concerns to the BLM at a Public Hearing!
Save the date to attend the public hearing on the Atlantic Rim Project:

Thursday, February 2nd, 7-8 p.m. (open house from 5 to 7)
at the JeffreyCenter in downtown Rawlins

Speaking at a public hearing puts the BLM on notice that there are people who care enough about these landscapes to spend their personal time and energy to protect them. These events are also magnets for media. Be quotable, and your concerns might show up in the newspaper.