BRUCE HINCHEY

Perspective

Our nation needs energy. We need all forms of energy from all sources, and that includes oil and natural gas. Wyoming is blessed with an abundance of clean-burning natural gas - a vital domestic resource, produced in America by Americans.

Natural gas is a critical bridge fuel that can get us to a place in the future where alternative forms of energy are more readily available and affordable. Unfortunately, there are some who are using emotional rhetoric to prevent the development of these vital resources.

An informed public should be given an accurate presentation of the facts, unlike a guest column published in the Casper Star-Tribune on Sept. 20, regarding natural gas development in the Atlantic Rim area. The column, "Fed land management plan endangers wildlife," by Dwayne Meadows, contained a number of false and unfounded assertions.

The Bureau of Land Management and the oil and gas operators in the area are committed to meeting the requirements of the 2007 Record of Decision (ROD), which governs activities in the area. The Atlantic Rim natural gas project is being performed under one of the most extensive and comprehensive set of restrictions to ensure the timing for drilling wells and the placement of wells to protect wildlife and other natural resources in the area.

As an example, in some areas of Atlantic Rim drilling and construction are only allowed from July 31 (the end of raptor-nesting protection) to Nov. 14 (the beginning of big-game crucial winter-range protection). Both BLM and industry acknowledge the development will not occur without some impact. However, both have worked in a responsible way to minimize disturbance to the surface, wildlife and habitat.

In the past year and a half, Atlantic Rim operators have worked diligently with BLM and other interested agencies such as the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to develop and implement a number of resource-monitoring plans. Monitoring studies have been initiated to address protection of mule deer, sage grouse, shrub-dependent song birds, and fish in Muddy Creek. Recommendations for new wildlife stipulations, should they be necessary, will be developed through the adaptive-management process, with monitoring programs to ascertain the nature and degree of impacts to these important wildlife resources.

Radio-collared deer are providing important information on the width and use of mule deer migration routes within Atlantic Rim. Several years of collared deer data provide a clear illustration of the movement of deer from their summer ranges east of the project development area to their winter range on the west end of the project.

The goals outlined in the ROD were to ensure that the migration routes remained functional, and there is no indication that current oil and gas development in Atlantic Rim will preclude the movement of deer. As development continues, operators are committed to ongoing funding of the mule deer study to document that deer migration routes remain functional and to work with BLM to adapt practices as necessary.

Opponents of developing Wyoming's clean-burning natural gas resources often use the term "industrial zone" to conjure images of smoke stacks, webs of aboveground piping and an array of electrical transmission lines. The truth is, the Atlantic Rim development is using primarily injection wells to manage produced water, operators are burying the vast majority of electrical lines, using low-profile sheds at well-heads, centrally locating and consolidating tank facilities and embarking on extensive reclamation efforts once a well has been drilled. No one is denying the landscape is changed somewhat by natural gas development; however, the area is hardly "industrialized" as the term implies.

While developing natural gas production through drilling and facility construction, operators are committed to minimizing surface disturbance to 6 percent in Atlantic Rim, with reclamation reducing the ultimate operating surface disturbance to just 3 percent of the total development area.

Finally, the column noted that there is an opportunity to "do it right" in Atlantic Rim. Upon further examination, we believe an informed observer will discover that the BLM and industry are providing for America's energy needs by developing the nation's mineral resources, and indeed, are doing it right in Atlantic Rim.

Bruce Hinchey of Casper is president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.