Bighorn Basin Targeted for Accelerated Oil and Gas Activity

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

September 6, 2007

Bighorn Basin Targeted for Accelerated Oil and Gas Activity

CODY – A major increase in oil and gas leasing in the Bureau of Land Management’s October oil and gas lease sale indicates mounting pressure to drill in this remote corner of Wyoming, according to conservation groups. The Bighorn Basin is sandwiched between the Yellowstone uplands and the Big Horn Mountains, and is made up of sagebrush grasslands and low deserts and badlands dominated by BLM-managed public lands, with important wilderness and wildlife resources. The October lease auction contains 78 leases totaling over 104,000 acres of public land in the Bighorn Basin that have been nominated by the oil and gas industry for leasing.

“The mounting pressure to lease Bighorn Basin lands with proposed wilderness and important wildlife habitats, coupled with the renewed seismic oil and gas exploration in this region, indicates that industry is planning a major ramping up of drilling in the Bighorn Basin,” remarked Suzanne Lewis of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.

The Bighorn Basin contains a wealth of sensitive wildlife habitat, including winter range for elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep that live in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, plus more than a dozen citizens’ proposed wilderness units.

“The Bighorn Basin is one of the only places in the West where sage grouse numbers are headed in a positive direction,” said to Clark Resource Council organizer Deb Thomas. “If there’s going to be heavy drilling activity in this area, we want it to happen in a much different way that protects sage grouse habitats.”

“This is the last area in the West to be opened to white settlement, with wilderness landscapes where people can still experience the wide open spaces and important archaeological and historical features like petroglyph panels in a pristine setting,” said Sean Sheehan, a board member of the Wyoming Wilderness Association from Cody. “These are fragile landscapes that could very quickly be destroyed by road-building and oil and gas development.”

Small-scale oil development projects have been active in the Bighorn Basin for many years, tapping into isolated dome deposits. But the deep deposits of natural gas found here have historically been considered uneconomic to develop. But now, with rising natural gas prices and advances in hydraulic fracking methods that allow tight sandstone and tight shale deposits to be tapped for gas production, gas resources in the Bighorn Basin have become a sought-after commodity.

According to Thomas, “The past 6 years of drilling on the Beartooth front in the northwestern Bighorn Basin has an atrocious record concerning protection of the natural environment and human safety. After Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Notices of Violation, spills, illegal dumping of drilling fluids, stormwater discharge events, unlined waste pits in critical areas, and other serious incidents, a drilling rig hit a high-pressure pocket of gas causing a “blow-out” with 8 million cubic feet of methane and vaporized drilling fluids released into the atmosphere, contaminating soil and groundwater and resulting in the evacuation of 25 homes in the Line Creek subdivision. These problems are serious and cannot be allowed to be repeated.”

“We have seen the problems created by explosive oil and gas development in other parts of the state like in the Pinedale area and think it’s important to make sure the same kinds of problems don’t develop in this area” added Bruce Pendery of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. “Going slow and doing it right is necessary to protect wildlife in this area and the social fabric of rural agricultural communities.”

The new pulse of oil and gas leases comes on the heels of a number of seismic exploration projects using vibroseis equipment, more commonly known as “thumper trucks.” Exploratory drilling is already taking place in the McCullough Peaks citizens’ proposed wilderness, and exploratory drilling units have recently been formed in this part of the basin.

“We’re pushing for oil and gas development to be done right in the Bighorn Basin, protecting sensitive landscapes and wildlife habitats and minimizing the impacts; it’s a major departure from previous BLM policies in the Red Desert, Powder River Basin, and Upper Green River Valley,” concluded Lewis. “Now is the time for local people to get involved in the process, before the oil and gas interests get so entrenched that it becomes impossible to manage the impacts.”

The BLM is scheduled to begin revising its three Bighorn Basin land-use plans, covering more than 3 million acres of public land, within the next year