Desert wildlands with sculpted badlands, island mountain ranges, and important habitats for wild

Monument Valley, Adobe Town WSA Photo by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance

horses, ferruginous hawks, mountain plovers, elk, and black-footed ferrets can all be found in the Great Divide region of south-central Wyoming. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) currently manages 4.7 million acres of public lands and minerals in this area under the Great Divide Plan. It includes spectacular wilderness like the pillars and battlements of Adobe Town and the uplands and canyons of Wild Cow Creek. Over the past decade, the BLM has managed these lands almost exclusively for oil, gas, and coal extraction, and has done little to protect its natural wonders.

But the Rawlins office of the BLM is now revising its Resource Management Plan for the area, which includes the eastern half of the fabled Red Desert. This long-term zoning plan will:

• designate lands to be protected for recreation and wildlife
• determine where oil and gas development is allowed and what methods are required to reduce impacts
• establish whether or not protective measures will be required of the oil and gas industry in the future to protect wildlife and wild places, as well as air and water quality.

Wild Horses near the Powder Rim Photo by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance

The BLM's preferred alternative continues to emphasize oil and gas drilling as the dominant use of public lands, with recreation and wildlife concerns as lower priorities. Under the BLM's Preferred Alternative,

• Over 90% of these public lands would be open to industrial-scale oil and gas drilling, and drill over six times as many wells under the new plan as are allowed under the existing one, when drilling is already proceeding at a record pace.
• Sensitive big game winter ranges and migration corridors, as well as important habitats for rare wildlife would continue to get only the token protection of seasonal restrictions, which allow industrialization of the most fragile areas as long as construction occurs during less sensitive times of year.
• Important parts of Adobe Town would be opened to drilling, while potential wilderness in the Pedro Mountains and Wild Cow Creek would not even be considered for protection.
• Almost 3,000 identified respected places that are important to Native Americans, archeologists, and trails enthusiasts, hundreds of which are eligible for designation on the National Register of Historic Places, would get not special protection.
• Air pollution in the Great Divide area would double, threatening air quality in protected areas and increasing levels of acid rain.
• Water quality in the North Platte and Great Divide Basin watersheds would be degraded in many areas due to surface discharge of toxic coalbed methane wastewater
• Many of the wide open spaces that characterize this heart of the Wild West would be industrialized.

In essence, the agency proposes to endorse the same heavy-handed drilling methods as always, with six times as much drilling.

The plan revision offers the public a great opportunity. It provides you (as American citizens and owners of these wildlands) the chance to demand sensitive lands and wildlife receive the protection they deserve while permitting oil and gas development to proceed in a balanced and responsible way.