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By Jamie Wolf

From Op Ed: “Wyo Outdoor Council has reduced lease protests”
Originally published in the Casper Star-Tribune
Sunday, August 22, 2010

By Bruce Pendery

By Lisa McGee

EARLIER THIS WEEK, the Wyoming Outdoor Council co-led its second summer field trip to the site of a proposed 136-well gas field in the Hoback Basin, in a relatively untouched part of the Wyoming Range.

We were able to enjoy some of the basin’s most precious resources, including its dazzling vistas and quiet solitude.

The area provides outstanding habitat for mule deer, elk, and moose; creeks important to native cutthroat trout; and a crucial migration corridor for the threatened Canada lynx.

This piece of the Bridger-Teton National Forest is also a favorite spot of Wyoming sportsmen and women—many of whom come from Rock Springs and Green River each fall to hunt.

Residents of Merna, Daniel, Pinedale, Rock Springs, and Jackson joined us to learn about the proposed drilling and road-building project—and what they can do to ensure its protection.

We carpooled into the forest on existing roads—many of which are narrow, rutted two-tracks—and hiked to a lookout over the site. The existing roads would all require major upgrades, and miles of new road would need to be built to make the project viable.

It was hard to image this secluded, quiet, circuitous route could soon be replaced by the noise, traffic, and pollution of hundreds of truck trips a day.

The Texas-based company, Plains Exploration and Production, claims it can mitigate the effects of a major gas field, but looking out over the stunning, intact basin this week, not one of us believed it. We are all too aware of the documented air and water quality degradation, as well as the impacts to wildlife, that have resulted from operations elsewhere in Sublette County.

Turning this basin in the heart of the greater Yellowstone area into an industrial gas field will have a negligible effect, if any, on our nation’s supply of natural gas, and it would degrade habitat, diminish recreational use, and pollute the basin’s air and water. There is simply no way to “do it right” in the Hoback Basin.

The U.S. Forest Service is expected to release its environmental analysis of this proposed project next month. If the proposal goes forward, the Council will demand the most environmentally protective conditions of approval and the most restrictive permitting. The basin deserves no less.

And we will continue to stand with citizens who are not satisfied with—and simply do not believe—the company’s promises that it can mitigate the effects of development.

For this reason, we have focused on a market-based solution that would respect the company’s valid leases while forever protecting this irreplaceable landscape. We requested the Forest Service to fully consider a “buyout” alternative in the upcoming environmental review.

Because the Hoback Basin is part of the area off-limits to future oil and gas leasing (thanks to passage in 2009 of the Wyoming Range Legacy Act), if Plains agrees to sell or trade its leases, the area could not be leased again and would be permanently protected.

We need your help. We will alert you next month when the release of the draft environmental review is expected.

There will be opportunities to attend public meetings and submit comments. We may even begin to raise money for a buyout if the company agrees to negotiate.

For more information, feel free to contact me at lisa@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org or visit the Citizens for the Wyoming Range website: www.wyomingrange.org.

Together, I believe we can save the Hoback Basin.

By Richard Garrett, Jr.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY is the problem of delivering power to the grid 24/7. Our country demands a consistent, predictable, and uniform supply of electricity.

Since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, wind and solar power must usually be combined with other, more traditional sources of electrical generation.

But that might be changing.

There have been some interesting developments for renewable energy storage, as recently reported by the New York Times. You can read the article at this link but here is the essence.

There are ways to store energy from wind and solar generation so that it can be used even when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

Xtreme Power, based in Austin, Texas, is putting in 15 megawatts of battery storage that will operate in conjunction with a wind energy facility in Hawaii.

Hawaii presently uses diesel fuel—every gallon of which is brought to the islands by ships—to generate most of its electricity.

As a result, Hawaii’s electricity not only faces security risks, it is very expensive compared to most places. (As of April, residents in Hawaii paid an average of more than 27 cents per kilowatt-hour—or more than three times what we paid in Wyoming and the highest rate in the country.)

Because of the substantial cost of producing diesel-based electricity on the islands, Hawaii has a goal of deriving 70 percent of its energy needs from renewables by 2030.

Advances in efficient energy storage would be a game-changer for the state.

Elsewhere, a Massachusetts company, Beacon Power, is building a bank of 200 one-ton flywheels that will store energy from the grid on a moment-to-moment basis to keep the alternating current system at a strict 60 cycles. (In the U.S. all electrically powered motors, appliances, and devices operate at 60 cycles per second and are intolerant of cycle variations.)

Because wind speeds vary, wind turbines can have variations in their rotation speeds. The flywheels are apparently designed to compensate for the variability of wind energy and to maintain a consistent 60-cycle delivery of power.

This means that wind turbines can deliver power through a broader range of wind speeds than they currently do, because the flywheels, due to weight and rotation, have the ability to “store” inertial energy.

And yet another development is the use of compressed air to store energy. Surplus electricity can be used to pump air into an underground cavity; when the electricity is needed, the air is injected into a gas turbine generator. In effect, it acts as a turbocharger that runs on wind energy captured the previous night, instead of burning natural gas at a peak hour.

Finally, hydro storage of energy is a well-understood method that is being tested in a variety of settings around the world.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WYOMING?

Energy storage presents some interesting ideas for us to consider, and maybe some opportunities.

One possibility is that we won’t have to install as many wind turbines in Wyoming as has been predicted in order to meet consumer demands in other states for renewable, or “green,” electrons.

This could be a very good thing because it would mean fewer impacts on wildlife and better conservation of open space.

One opportunity for the state might be to attract investment and research money to work with the University of Wyoming on renewable energy storage technologies.

We believe the University of Wyoming is uniquely positioned to do this kind of research.

When I raised this idea with Mark Northam, director of the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources, he was receptive.

“Efficient energy storage would provide a large benefit to integrating renewable energy with the existing grid,” Northam said in an email. “UW would welcome investment by the state and the industry in research to further develop efficient energy storage technologies.”

Such investments would likely bring good jobs to the state—and maybe, if efficient processes are developed, a company devoted to storage technology might be persuaded to locate its manufacturing facilities here.

WHAT ABOUT COAL?

Meanwhile, where does this leave our traditional energy commodity, coal? Coal’s challenge (and Wyoming’s) will be to clean up its emissions and stay competitive with all kinds of technologies in a carbon-constrained world.

This is part of an “all-of-the-above” strategy that has the potential to produce at least as many jobs, and as many megawatts, as the country needs.

Contact: Richard Garrett, Jr., energy and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-332-7031 x18; 307-438-9516; richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

SUBMIT YOUR BEST WYOMING PHOTOS for inclusion in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2011 calendar.

Help us honor and celebrate Wyoming’s abundant wildlife, treasured landscapes, and outdoors heritage.

Winning photographs will be published in our 2011 calendar. Submission deadline is August 15, 2010.

Do you have great shots of Wyoming’s spectacular landscapes, wildlife, and people enjoying the great outdoors? If so, get them published in our annual calendar.

Previous calendars have included photographs by some of Wyoming’s best professional photographers, as well as some of its most gifted amateur shooters.

RULES

• Photographs must be taken in Wyoming and can include landscapes, lifestyles, wildlife, and people.
• All photos must be submitted in digital form by email, mailed on a CD or DVD, or hand delivered on a CD, DVD, or flash drive to our Lander office.
• Photos can only be published if available in a high-quality, relatively high-resolution, digital format.
• Photograph entries constitute permission to use the images with credit to the photographer without monetary compensation.
• Please include your name, address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, email address, and description of your photo including where the photo was taken.

TO SUBMIT PHOTOS, PLEASE EMAIL OR MAIL TO CHRIS MERRILL:

chris@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

Wyoming Outdoor Council

262 Lincoln Street

Lander, WY 82520

STARTING NEXT WEEK all Wyoming residents will have an opportunity to help the Bureau of Land Management decide where and how to site wind turbines and other types of development on BLM lands.

Your participation will help the BLM update what the agency calls its visual resource management inventories for the Rawlins and Rock Springs field offices.

The BLM will hold open houses next week where people can tell the agency which scenic places they would like to see protected.

WHY THESE INVENTORIES ARE IMPORTANT:

The BLM uses them to ensure that iconic, historic, and locally cherished landscapes retain their scenic qualities and are not marred by development.

As the Casper Star-Tribune editorial board said today: “We all know there are scenic places that are an inherent part of Wyoming, and their loss would be extremely detrimental to our overall quality of life.”

Some things that can affect scenic qualities include wind energy development, oil and gas drilling, and mining.

The updated visual inventories will be used by the BLM for the next 15 to 20 years when it decides whether and how to allow development on public lands.

This review of the visual resources in the Rawlins and Rock Springs field offices may well be one of the best opportunities for Wyoming residents to help the BLM make good decisions about where it allows future development.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Attend one of the BLM’s open houses and help it answer the following questions:

* What areas do you think should be off-limits to development because their scenic values are too important?

* What types of land uses (e.g. recreation facilities, recreation activity, livestock grazing, oil and gas development, wind energy, etc.) are most detrimental, in your opinion, to the scenic values of these landscapes?

* How much development in a given landscape would negatively affect its visual qualities? How dense and/or intense would the development need to be to have negative impacts on the viewshed?

Click here or on the map below for a zoomable PDF that shows the boundaries of the Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices. The yellow areas on the map indicate the BLM lands that are subject to the visual inventory review.

MEETING INFORMATION

Time for all Meetings: 4-7:30 p.m.

Date and Location:

Monday, July 12, BAGGS, Little Snake River Valley Ed. Center
360 Whipporwill

Tuesday, July 13, RAWLINS. Jeffery Memorial Community Center
315 East Pine Street

Wednesday, July 14, ROCK SPRINGS, Western Wyoming Community College
2500 College Drive, Room 1302

Monday, July 19, SARATOGA, Platte Valley Community Center
210 Elm Street

Tuesday, July 20, LARAMIE, Albany County Library
310 South 8th Street

If you cannot attend an open house, help the Wyoming Outdoor Council represent you. We will be submitting comments based upon our members’ responses to the questions above.

To help with this effort, please contact Nathan Maxon at 307-332-7031 ext. 15 or at nathan@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.com.

WYOMING’S SAGE-GROUSE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM is recommending the state expand the area it designates as “core” sage-grouse habitat.

These recommendations will likely be the group’s final product, and they are intended to guide state policy related to sage-grouse for the next five years.

The team, created by Gov. Dave Freudenthal in 2007, is calling for Wyoming to add about 470 square miles of land to its designated “core population area” for Greater sage-grouse, for which the group has generated an updated map outlining the proposed areas.

Under executive order, Wyoming’s governor has recommended strong protections for core sage-grouse habitat in an attempt to maintain or enhance current grouse populations in these areas.

The idea of protecting “core” areas is based on the fact that more than 80 percent of Wyoming’s sage-grouse population live in these areas, so if land managers protect the core habitat, they’ll protect more than 80 percent of the birds.

Sage-grouse populations have plummeted in recent decades, and today more than half of the world’s remaining Greater sage-grouse live in Wyoming.

Wyoming has developed its “core area” approach under the looming threat that the bird could be listed by the federal government as an endangered species.

In March, the Interior Department classified the Greater sage-grouse as “warranted but precluded” from protections under the federal Endangered Species Act. This designation is basically an acknowledgment that a species is in dire straits, but with limited resources at the federal level—in a triage situation—other species are taking precedent.

OUTDOOR COUNCIL SUPPORTS THE ‘CORE AREA’ APPROACH

During a press conference on Tuesday, Freudenthal lamented the fact that several environmental groups have filed lawsuits over the bird’s status, attempting to get sage-grouse protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“They’re suing while we’re doing the work,” Freudenthal said. “We’re doing what they should be doing–conserving–but they’d rather litigate than fix anything,” he said.

To be fair, however, while some environmental groups are party to the sage-grouse litigation, others support the efforts of the governor’s sage-grouse team, and indeed have participated in the team’s work.

The Wyoming Outdoor Council, for example, Wyoming’s largest independent conservation organization, supports the governor’s “core areas” approach for preserving sage-grouse. And the Council is not engaging in any lawsuit related to the species’ federal status.

The Greater sage-grouse. Photo by Scott Copeland.

Still, Freudenthal cited the threat of litigation as at least one impetus for developing a strong state-led management scheme.

“We’re going to be sued over and over and over again so you have to have a strategy that lasts and is sufficient to withstand litigation,” Freudenthal said.

This strategy includes three top priorities, according to the governor’s office: (1) A finalization of the bird’s core areas. (2) Stipulations for sage-grouse management by business interests, such as oil and gas developers, inside and outside of the core areas. And (3) identification of “connectivity” areas that ensure the birds can move between different areas and preserve their genetic integrity.

“If you’re looking at conservation and you can actually identify and conserve 83.1 percent of a species … in roughly 25 percent of the state’s land mass, that is a good sign,” said Bob Budd, who chairs the governor’s sage-grouse team.

But, as Freudenthal pointed out, the policy resulting from the sage-grouse team’s recommendations is potentially tenuous. When he leaves office in 2011, the new governor could have the option of discarding the entire “core areas” approach and ignoring the sage-grouse team’s recommendations.

“This is an effort and a policy that is peculiarly dependent on whoever is governor,” Freudenthal said. “This policy’s in place, it is underway, the sage-grouse working group created their recommendations. We hope that these recommendations will be the guide for the next five years, which is what [the team believes] it’s going to take to get things stabilized in the core areas, as well as get some other research done. That may or may not [come to fruition], frankly, depending on who’s governor. And it is [also] dependent on the legislative and executive branch support going forward.”

Click here or on the map above to see the latest sage-grouse core areas map, as recommended by Gov. Dave Freduenthal’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team on June 29 2010.

Click here to read the Sage Grouse Implementation Team’s final recommendations for stipulations for development in core sage-grouse areas.

By Bruce Pendery

LAST MONTH THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR finalized reforms to its onshore oil and gas leasing program. The reforms will modify the way the Bureau of Land Management goes about leasing public lands for oil and natural gas development.

The federal Bureau of Land Management issued two “instruction memoranda” to finalize these reforms.

We are pleased with this new policy direction. We think these reforms were overdue, and they will help ensure a more balanced approach in the federal onshore oil and gas leasing program.

This new direction from Washington, D.C. clearly represents a departure from the “drill baby drill” philosophy that unfortunately characterized BLM oil and gas leasing decision-making for much of the last ten years.

“While [a BLM management plan] may designate land as ‘open’ to possible leasing, such a designation does not mandate leasing,” the new policy states. “Under applicable laws and policies, there is no presumed preference for oil and gas development over other uses.” (Emphasis added.)

The new policies establish two new processes for leasing:

(1) There must now be careful review and public involvement on a parcel-specific basis. As a result, the public will have a better opportunity to help the BLM determine if greater levels of protection are needed, or whether the parcels should be withdrawn from sale.

(2) The BLM will now develop what are called “master leasing plans” for areas that are not currently substantially leased, but which might be subject to development, and which have important resource values that could create potential conflicts.

In addition, the BLM put in place another policy requiring prior compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act in some cases before a so-called “categorical exclusion” can be used.

Categorical exclusions are controversial tools that were created by Congress in 2005 as part of Bush-era energy legislation. These categorical exclusions, in effect, allow the BLM to bypass a thorough environmental review in order to fast-track energy development.

“The BLM reforms we are finalizing today establish a more orderly, open, and environmentally sound process for developing oil and gas resources on public lands” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in May. “The BP oil spill is a stark reminder of how we must continue to push ahead with the reforms we have been working on and which we know are needed.”

TWO MAJOR REFORMS

The BLM has established two major reforms that I’d like to discuss in this piece in some detail.

First: The BLM will put in place interdisciplinary parcel review teams to review potential lease parcels.

This group must deliberate as a team, and then make recommendations to the BLM state director for conditions that should be applied to a lease parcel.

This team’s recommendations can lead to such things as lease parcels being offered only with modified stipulations, or even deferred or withheld from sale.

Generally, the team will conduct site-specific lease parcel visits, especially if the area is not currently under development. Most BLM lands are not currently under development even if they have already been leased, so site-specific reviews will likely be the norm, especially initially.

There are also significant requirements for increased levels of internal and external coordination, and the BLM is now mandated to include more public participation in the process. Notably, site-specific compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act is now generally required for potential lease parcels.

This has at least one major implication for Wyoming. The BLM’s traditional practice—of insisting that no site-specific environmental analysis is possible until after a developer files an application for a drilling permit—no longer appears to be viable.

In the future a much more site-specific consideration of potential environmental impacts will be required prior to leasing.

According to the new policy, one consideration that should be taken into account when determining whether a lease parcel should be offered for lease is whether non-mineral values are greater than potential mineral development values.

More thorough, site-specific analysis of drilling proposals could help land managers better protect wildlife, such as Wyoming’s iconic sage-grouse. Photo by Scott Copeland.

The new direction requires that a determination of these relative values will not be dependent upon economic valuations of the competing resources.

Second: The BLM will be required, under some circumstances, to develop what the agency calls “master leasing plans.”

The BLM is now required to develop such a master plan if the following four criteria are met.

(1) A substantial portion of the area under consideration must not currently be leased.
(2) The federal government must own a majority interest in the minerals.
(3) Industry must have expressed interest and there is a moderate to high potential for the presence of oil and gas.
(4) There is a need for additional analysis to consider natural or cultural resource conflicts, impacts to air quality, impacts to specially designated areas such as wilderness, and impacts “on other specially designated areas.”

These new master plans will enable the BLM to evaluate optimal lease parcel configurations and development scenarios, provide for identification of resource conflicts and environmental impacts that would result from development, provide for mitigation, and consider new constraints on development, including the prohibition of surface occupancy and the closure of some areas to leasing.

FIXING ‘CATEGORICAL EXCLUSIONS’

Another sea change ushered in by the new policies involves the circumstances under which the federal government can use so-called categorical exclusions to fast-track energy development.

The problem: The 2005 Energy Policy Act established five situations where proposed oil and gas development can be “categorically excluded” from compliance with national environmental laws. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has found that categorical exclusions were abused and misused during the Bush administration in Wyoming (particularly in the Pinedale area) and elsewhere.

And for what it’s worth, a categorical exclusion was also used to approve the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation, which exploded in April and is still gushing tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

The solution under the new rules: The new BLM policy makes clear that prior compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act must have occurred before two of the categorical exclusions can be utilized.

It also requires the BLM to conduct a review to determine if “extraordinary circumstances” might be present before any of the five categorical exclusions can be used; if extraordinary circumstances exist a categorical exclusion cannot be used.

WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO PARTICIPATE BEFORE AUGUST 16

BLM state directors have been instructed to develop an implementation plan and timeline for accomplishing the requirements of the new leasing policies.

The state offices must submit an implementation plan to the BLM’s Washington, D.C. office by August 16, 2010, and they are required to submit a post-implementation report to Washington by May 18, 2011.

All told, these leasing reforms will create significant opportunities for the public to become more engaged in oil and gas leasing decisions.

The public can engage in leasing decisions and the development of master leasing plans, and we encourage you to do so.

Your participation in these master plans and throughout the process could greatly improve environmental protections on federal lands.

In addition, we encourage you to submit recommendations to the BLM’s Wyoming state office for areas where master leasing plans are needed prior to the August 16 implementation plan report deadline.

It will be a great benefit if the BLM fully recognizes all the areas that need these master plans.

MORE REFORMS TO COME?

In conclusion, I think it’s important to note that while this oil and gas leasing reform effort is quite significant, even more reforms could follow.

In particular, we are hopeful the BLM will develop reforms regarding how oil and gas operations are conducted after the land is leased—including drilling and well maintenance and production activities.

These activities have very significant environmental impacts, too. We encourage people to contact BLM Director Bob Abbey and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar urging them to pursue reforms to the way the BLM oversees operations, after the drilling has been approved.

If you would like to read the full text of the leasing reform instructional memoranda, they can be found here.

Contact: Bruce Pendery, program director, Wyoming Outdoor Council, bruce@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

THE CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE, Wyoming’s statewide newspaper, ran a compelling profile of Wyoming Outdoor Council founder Tom Bell this week, as part of the paper’s They Served With Honor series.

Here’s an excerpt:

How ironic, he thought. Red, white and blue.

1st Lt.Tom Bell cocked his head to the side and stared out of a dome in his B-24 as a curtain of anti-aircraft fire exploded red and white in the bright blue sky over German-occupied Vienna.

While he was lost in momentary thought, an invisible force pushed his head back.

Then everything exploded.

Flak came through the window. Fiberglass pieces ripped into the bombardier’s eye. He dropped to his knees.

When Bell awoke, all he could think was to drop the bombs. Finish the mission.

He looked down as blood poured from his wounded eye.

Still focused on his duty, he put a bandage on his eye and stumbled down to his bombardier station.

The bombs were gone. The pilot had lowered the explosives.

Now all he could do was wait…

Read the full story here.

Watch Tom Bell tell the emotional story of his World War II service here.

Drilling on the Pinedale Anticline, photo by Linda Baker

THE WYOMING OIL AND GAS CONSERVATION COMMISSION has unanimously approved new rules that will require companies operating in Wyoming to disclose the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” process.

The new regulations were championed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who sits on the commission, as a way of heading off federal government regulation of fracking in Wyoming, and to ensure the state remains the primary regulator here.

Regardless of the impetus, many observers—including the Wyoming Outdoor Council—believe the updated rules will help the state do a better job of protecting people, ground water and surface water from potential dangers associated with fracking.

The new fracking rules were introduced by a motion from Freudenthal during a scheduled meeting of the oil and gas commission this morning in Casper, and they were approved by a 5-0 vote.

Steve Jones with the Wyoming Outdoor Council called the vote a “good step forward.”

“This was an important decision,” Jones said. “I think we’d all like the state to be able to work proactively to protect workers and residents. These rules, if stringently applied, should help regulators do a better job of protecting rivers and streams and underground aquifers from contamination.”

During hydraulic fracturing, drillers inject chemicals and fluids underground at high pressure to break up rock formations. This can release natural gas reserves that had been stored in the formation. The process is used in a variety of natural gas plays in the United States, and in Wyoming it is used in multiple locations, including on the Pinedale Anticline and Jonah fields near Pinedale.

Several Pavillion-area residents’ water wells have been contaminated by hydrocarbons and other toxins in recent years, and some area residents believe this contamination is a result of hydraulic fracturing near or on their properties.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the contaminated wells in Pavillion and is still working to determine the cause or causes. The future disclosure of the constituents of fracking fluids, as required by the new rules, could help regulators investigate such water well contamination by giving investigators a list of chemicals and substances to test for.

The new fracking regulations must be finalized, signed by the governor, and filed before they take effect.

Contact: Steve Jones, watershed protection program attorney, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-349-6577 (cell); 307-332-7031 x12 (office)