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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance * Natural Resources Defense Council NEWS RELEASE November 2, 2009 Federal lease sale at odds with state and local guidance LARAMIE —Five conservation groups have requested the Bureau of Land Management cancel oil and gas lease sales in areas where development would be at odds with local government and state plans. The cancellation request includes fifteen parcels located within the Adobe Town Very Rare or Uncommon area and seventeen parcels located within the Governor’s Core Sage Grouse Habitat. The Bureau of Land Management has nominated these parcels and others for an upcoming December lease sale. For years, the iconic landscape of Adobe town has mobilized sportsmen, labor unions, faith groups, local and state governments, and conservation groups who believe the area is too special to drill. “The Wyoming Association of Churches has for the last several years been very concerned about a lack of protection for the Adobe Town area of the Red Desert,” said Warren Murphy, Environmental Projects Director for the Wyoming Association of Churches. “We are particularly concerned about the December round of leasing which shows a lack of respect for an exceptional part of our state’s heritage. The Association of Churches would like to see the entire Adobe Town area preserved for its wild character as a way to protect the beauty and sacredness of this landscape. Church people from throughout the nation are raising their voices about the concern for the protection of landscapes as part of a growing agenda for what we are calling ‘creation care.’ Wyoming’s part of this creation care agenda is the protection of Adobe Town.” Recognizing the broad support for protecting the area, The Wyoming Environmental Quality Council designated all 180,910 acres of Adobe Town as the state’s largest “Very Rare or Uncommon Area.” A year later, Sweetwater County Commissioners adopted a resolution recommending no future leasing in the southern two-thirds of the Adobe Town Very Rare or Uncommon Area, which includes all 15 parcels marked for sale in the December lease sale. "The Sweetwater County Commission recommended that these lands not be leased for oil and gas drilling, but the BLM doesn't seem to be listing to the local input," said Mike Guy, a Wyoming sportsman who hunts in the Red Desert. "There are plenty of places in Wyoming where vast stretches of public land have already been turned into oil and gas fields. But we shouldn't allow drilling everywhere, and places like Adobe Town that have such outstanding wildlife and landscape values should be protected so people have someplace left to enjoy the Red Desert in its natural state." The groups also contend that despite continuing declines in sage grouse populations the BLM continues to lease away sensitive areas, including state core sage grouse habitat. Core sage grouse habitat are those areas the state has identified as being most critical to ensuring the survival of sage grouse with an eye toward keeping the bird from being listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. "There has been ample proof that the BLM’s standard sage grouse protections don’t stand up to the full-scale industrialization of oil and gas drilling, so we don’t understand why these leases rely on measures that state agencies across the west have derided as ineffective,” said Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “With a listing decision on the horizon, now is not a time for the BLM to be ignoring the science and failing to impose even the minimal protections offered by the state’s Core Area plan.” The groups protesting the leases included Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, Wyoming Outdoor Council, The Wilderness Society, Wyoming Wilderness Association, and Center for Native Ecosystems. Contact information:
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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073 (307) 742-7978 - carmi@voiceforthewild.org |