CHRIS MERRILL Star-Tribune environment reporter | Posted: Friday, May 23, 2008 12:00 am
JACKSON - The order of the day for participants in a sportsmen-sponsored symposium here Thursday was working for the cause of taking the Wyoming Range off of the table for future oil and gas development.
But the 170 or so people taking part in the Responsible Energy Development Symposium at Jackson Lake Lodge said their intent wasn't to vilify the energy industry, which they acknowledged has been the key reason for the Cowboy State's economic resurgence in recent years.
They said they're simply seek a balance between energy and economic development and the preservation of what makes Wyoming precious.
"We have a chance to do something special, before it's too late," said John Turner of Moose, former Republican Wyoming legislative leader and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Who would ever have believed that we'd have ozone warnings in the Upper Green River? And who'd ever believe that we'd have protests in that community?"
The symposium was organized by Trout Unlimited and Sportsmen for Responsible Development in response to Wyoming's ongoing energy boom, which the participating groups consider a threat to the future of some of Wyoming's most hallowed hunting, fishing and recreation lands.
This meeting came the day after Bush administration officials released a report indicating that huge amounts of America's oil and gas reserves on public lands are inaccessible to producers, and they argued for fewer restrictions to domestic development of fossil fuels.
Turner said he thinks it is possible - by taking a bigger-picture, more comprehensive approach to resource management - to both encourage energy development and protect wildlife and other natural resources at the same time.
He called for a new approach to oil and gas development that values resources such as healthy wildlife and hunting and fishing opportunities as much as it values fuel resources. And he indicated that a change in philosophy, at the federal level, is in order.
"I submit that the record is not good. It's not a record that inspires confidence," Turner said. "We need more science, and better science. We simply can't continue to wing it. We simply can't have BLM [personnel] hired to do biology, shackled to their desks, required to shuttle permits out the door all day."
The federal process for governing energy development needs to be "more transparent," he said, and there needs to be an emphasis on building partnerships among all interested parties.
"We need better leadership. We need people to stand up and simply start doing the right thing," Turner said. "We need more spirituality. I'm not talking about religion, although that plays a part - I'm talking about making moral decisions. I'm talking about a community taking responsibility for its actions. Finding common ground, showing respect for one another and making decisions based on shared values."
Turner saluted U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., for his efforts to keep the Wyoming Range off-limits to future oil and gas drilling, calling it an important cause.
"What else would bring craggy old ranchers together with cranky rednecks and self-proclaimed tree-huggers?" Turner said.
Losing the "home place"
Sportsmen for Responsible Development is a coalition of about 30 hunters and anglers groups and more than 60 trade unions, and its chief cause is to see that Barrasso's legislation, called the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, wins approval in the Senate and is eventually enacted by Congress and signed by the president.
Barrasso introduced the legislation in October 2007. It recently passed committee is waiting for a hearing on the Senate floor.
If the bill comes to fruition, it will allow all current energy development to continue, but it will stop all future oil and gas drilling and will call for a mechanism by which private interests could negotiate and buy existing, valid leases from the leaseholders.
Walt Gasson, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said that on a personal level, protecting the Wyoming Range has to do with protecting his and his family's "home place." He said the same is true for many Wyomingites.
"A home place is where your kids get dirty and your soul gets clean," Gasson said.
He said it would be unconscionable if Wyoming hunters and anglers allowed the Wyoming Range to become industrialized by oil and gas development.
"What can we do as hunters and anglers?" Gasson asked the audience. "We can get our shiny behinds off the couch and engage on this issue."
Hunters and anglers must reclaim their roles as "stewards" of Wyoming's natural resources, Gasson said.
"Unless sportsmen are involved, we will lose the home place," he said.
Tom Reed of Trout Unlimited agreed. He cited an old Wyoming catch phrase to help make his point.
"Back in the early '90s I remember the slogan, 'Wyoming is what America was,'" Reed said. "You don't hear that anymore. Things have changed here. So I'd like to update that slogan to something like this: "The Wyoming Range is what Wyoming was."
Real compromise?
Several of Thursday's speakers emphasized the importance of creating partnerships with industry in order to find common ground, but when it comes to the issue of the Wyoming Range, that spirit doesn't seem to pervade, an industry spokesman said Thursday.
"So far there has been no compromise. We asked for areas along the front range [of the Wyoming Range] and we did not get any of it," said Bruce Hinchey, president Petroleum Association of Wyoming. "We're not talking about drilling the entire range. We're talking about pockets of drilling, mostly along the front range."
For Hinchey, taking 1.2 million acres off the table for energy development in one sweeping action doesn't seem to provide much compromise.
As for the idea of negotiated buyouts for undeveloped, valid leases, Hinchey said it might work, although he's unclear as to how the value of those leases could be determined.
Because the gas resource is potentially bountiful and highly concentrated, those leases could conceivably be very expensive, he said.
Regardless, and contrary to claims made at the symposium Thursday, it is possible to mix hunting and drilling, Hinchey said. The interests of sportsmen are shared, he said, by most people involved in the energy industry.
"I'm a sportsman," Hinchey said. "I like to hunt and fish. And most of the people who work in this industry like to hunt and fish. We're going to make sure things are done right."