DWAYNE MEADOWS
Perspective

Kudos are due to every Wyoming resident who spoke out against the Bureau of Land Management’s recent, wrong-headed proposal to clear the way for oil and gas development on parcels of public lands in the North Platte River headwaters.

The 88 formal protests received by the BLM came from hunting and fishing outfitters, water users, some of Wyoming’s oldest family ranches, conservation groups and many multi-generational residents. This unprecedented outpouring of discontent made it impossible for the federal agency to ignore the will of the public to conserve its fish and wildlife. It sent a clear message to the BLM that proper planning needs to be done prior to leasing any land, especially when that land provides crucial habitat for fish and wildlife, has split estate agricultural issues and threatens municipal water supply.

The agency announced last week that it was pulling 13 parcels covering a total of 28,500 acres from the auction block. When it did, it issued a bland explanation that it is going to wait to offer these parcels until the area’s resource management plan is updated. This explanation struck a hollow note. Perhaps this was because the Rawlins BLM field office offered other parcels for sale, even though these parcels also are affected by the management plan’s re-write. Perhaps this was because the Lander, Pinedale, Kemmerer and Casper BLM field offices are in the same or earlier stages of planning and have leased parcels throughout the process.

Or perhaps this was because it was the second time this year that the agency scrambled to explain to Wyoming why it was pulling parcels from the auction block that never should have been sent there in the first place. In February, the agency admitted it had made a "mistake" in failing to assess the impacts to wildlife from leases near Pinedale.

Leadership by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, State Rep. Jeb Steward and the Game and Fish Commission were important in this effort, as were the actions of the towns of Encampment, Saratoga and Riverside, along with Carbon County. Their official statements added urgency to the issue, an urgency that the conservation groups and private citizens that have protested earlier lease offerings were hoping would come. I know that I am not alone in my deep appreciation for these actions.

Now that our eyes have focused clearly on the continued offenses of the agency, the question becomes whether we will keep the engine of reform rolling forward. So long as the BLM continues to apply the current standards to the energy leasing, the threat persists to Wyoming’s renewable resources, like our trout, elk, pronghorn, mule deer and sage grouse.

Bear in mind that even though the BLM has pulled 28,500 acres from the auction block, 215,500 acres remain for sale. The BLM has sold many similar lands around the state and around the West despite formal protests with equal or greater scientific merits. In fact, the agency already has leased more than 615,000 acres of Wyoming this year. After this latest sale by the Wyoming BLM office, that number could jump to 830,000 acres. That’s an area large enough to cover almost three Grand Teton National Parks. About 18 percent of Wyoming has been leased in the past 10 years, and about 25 percent of the entire state is currently leased for oil and gas development.

Across the Intermountain West, those figures are even more eye-popping. In 2007 alone, the federal government has leased more than 1.3 million acres, and in the last 10 years, the federal government leased more than 25 million total acres of our public lands for energy development. That’s an area larger than the entire state of West Virginia.

More troubling than the total number of acres being leased for development is the nature of those lands. With increasing frequency, the lands are prime habitat essential for our hunting and fishing traditions. This reality magnifies another: The entire federal energy leasing system fails wildlife by failing to plan to sustain their populations before the lands are leased. These agencies do not set firm limits on the number of wells that can be drilled in an area cleared for leasing (visit Pinedale for proof), nor do they develop comprehensive conservation strategies for fish and wildlife before selling the right to develop these lands. Such things are considered as an afterthought much later in the process; at that point, the public must consider buying back their public lands on their own dime. We find ourselves chewing on this type of sour pickle in the Wyoming Range.

Our fish and wildlife must not be managed as an afterthought. They are central to our American outdoor heritage. It is my hope that those who have seen in this latest round of lease offerings a broken process that unnecessarily imperils our fish and wildlife will continue to speak out. Having notched a temporary victory for conservation in one of the best parts of the state, we owe it to the fish and wildlife resources of the rest of Wyoming and the West to continue calling for change.

Dwayne Meadows of Laramie is the energy field representative for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.