Challenges for wildlife
By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent
Participants in a wildlife summit Friday heard a series of shocking news and views -- everything from the juggernaut nature of Wyoming’s energy boom, to impending climate change impacts, to a $5 billion price tag on how much it would cost to buy and preserve the state’s critical wildlife habitat.
Yet in a conference that could easily produce shell-shocked faces and despair, there was a greater sense of urgency at the first Wildlife Heritage Summit in Casper. It started with the opening words of Bill Williams, chairman of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. He called upon participants -- conservation and agricultural groups, energy companies, state and federal agencies and academics -- to establish “relationships, not headlines.”
Wyoming faces more issues than ever before, demanding the collective energies and intellect of the state, he said. He called the state’s energy boom a “double-edged sword,” which brings jobs and growth, but also pressures on wildlife and wildlife habitat never seen before.
Williams expressed confidence that energy boom-impacted habitat could be rehabilitated in the future, but “housing developments and streets will be with us forever,” he said.
Instead of fighting with one another, participants should “listen with an open mind” and begin a lasting dialogue, Williams said.
Not your daddy’s boom
State Geologist Ron Surdam told the audience that “this isn’t your father’s (energy) boom” and that it will last as long as anyone in the room.
“I don’t anticipate a bust,” said Surdam, given national and global trends in energy demand and supply.
Given current demand and growth for energy supplies, the world would have to discover the equivalent of the giant Saudi Arabia oil fields “every two years” to stay current with world demand, he said.
“You’ve seen the golden age of cheap, abundant energy,” Surdam said. Say goodbye “forever” to $1.50-per-gallon gas, and get ready for $4-per-gallon gas from now on.
He said Wyoming can anticipate a huge, new market for its natural gas as a pipeline is built into the Midwest and the Chicago market loses a dependable supply of natural gas from Canada -- gas that will be diverted to develop the tar sand fields of Alberta.
Wyoming is producing 500 million tons of coal per year, but that could jump to 600 million tons if another railroad could reach the Powder River Basin coal fields, he said.
What all of that means is that Wyoming is the No. 1 energy exporting state in the nation, producing 10 quadtrillion British thermal units of energy every year -- enough to fuel the energy needs of California, the seventh biggest economy in the world.
Warming Earth
Randy Udall, of Colorado’s Community Office for Resource Efficiency, warned summit participants that they're already seeing the effects of global warming, with worse to come. Warmer winters and summers, less snow, earlier runoff, fires and intense drought are becoming the new normal.
Udall said scientists are still debating which climate computer model best predicts the future of the Rocky Mountains: warmer and wetter, or warmer and drier? If warmer and drier, the nation’s breadbasket in the Plains would be disastrously damaged, he said, while Wyoming’s habitat would look more like Colorado and even New Mexico.
Referring to Surdam’s reference that Wyoming could meet all of California’s energy needs, Udall said, “California is cannibalizing Wyoming, hollowing you out like a pumpkin."
The coal question is a global dilemma for China and the United States, he said, because those two countries have the biggest coal reserves. “We’ve got to find a way to use this most abundant of fuels, but there’s 10 times more fuel in the world’s coal than the world’s forests,” he said.
If all that coal carbon was released, he warned, the entire earth would change, and not for the better. He predicted that in 20 to 30 years, global warming will wreak such devastating impacts that coal-burning power plants will be bulldozed, or will be viewed as military targets.
The difference between doing something now to curtail carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and letting it build up, is a global temperature increase of 5 to 10 degrees, he said.
Because Wyoming has so much energy, Udall urged the state to spearhead the development of new energy technologies, including wind and solar. “If Wyoming didn’t have coal, I’m convinced you’d be the world’s leader in producing wind energy,” he said.
Open space
Using a series of maps developed by The Nature Conservancy, Wyoming Game and Fish and federal land agencies, Wyoming Nature Conservancy Director Andrea Erickson-Quiroz warned that the state has much to lose from residential development.
According to a survey taken by the American Farm Land Trust, she said, Wyoming has 2.6 million acres of high-quality ranchland at risk of residential development by 2020. That means that Wyoming is looking at a large-scale transformation of open space.
Looking at roads, pipelines, oil and gas development, mines and ag lands converted to residential properties, some 30 percent of Wyoming shows multiple levels of habitat degradation. “But that’s a lot for a population of half a million,” she said.
Speculating aloud, Erickson-Quiroz said one strategy Wyoming might pursue is the idea of tapping intensely developed energy areas such as the Jonah Field for the money needed to save the rest of the state -- the high-value sites that are critical for wildlife. She later emphasized that does not mean letting energy companies off the hook for on- and off-site mitigation or creation of anything-goes sacrifice zones. Instead, she recommended using revenues from energy development to maximum leverage in saving wildlife habitat.
“We’ve got to find common ground,” she said, “incentivize and support the private landowners who volunteer to help, engage with industry to optimize the balance between energy development and habitat, and plan for change.” That could mean looking for Colorado and New Mexico species in Wyoming.
How much?
Bob Budd, director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, related a story about how he got to wondering how much would it cost to purchase and save all the vital wildlife habitat in Wyoming.
He asked the Ruckelshaus Institute at the University of Wyoming. Months later, Budd called up Ruckelshaus Director Harold Bergman to see if anyone had figured out the answer.
“I asked Harold if they’d run the numbers, and Harold said they had,” Budd said.
Well, what’s the bottom line, asked Budd.
“It’s too scary,” Bergman responded.
What David “Tex” Taylor of the Ruckelshaus Institute had figured out was a price tag of $5 billion.
Budd said he wondered if that was too low a figure, as it doesn’t include all the habitat restoration work that needs to be done.
Rolling through a series of slides about conservation and habitat restoration programs run by federal agencies, Budd estimated that Wyoming has an unmet need for conservation and restoration projects of $180 million a year. He said the wave of the future lies with landowner-initiated projects such as those emerging from the Thunder Basin and Shirley Basin.
By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent
Participants in a wildlife summit Friday heard a series of shocking news and views -- everything from the juggernaut nature of Wyoming’s energy boom, to impending climate change impacts, to a $5 billion price tag on how much it would cost to buy and preserve the state’s critical wildlife habitat.
Yet in a conference that could easily produce shell-shocked faces and despair, there was a greater sense of urgency at the first Wildlife Heritage Summit in Casper. It started with the opening words of Bill Williams, chairman of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. He called upon participants -- conservation and agricultural groups, energy companies, state and federal agencies and academics -- to establish “relationships, not headlines.”
Wyoming faces more issues than ever before, demanding the collective energies and intellect of the state, he said. He called the state’s energy boom a “double-edged sword,” which brings jobs and growth, but also pressures on wildlife and wildlife habitat never seen before.
Williams expressed confidence that energy boom-impacted habitat could be rehabilitated in the future, but “housing developments and streets will be with us forever,” he said.
Instead of fighting with one another, participants should “listen with an open mind” and begin a lasting dialogue, Williams said.
Not your daddy’s boom
State Geologist Ron Surdam told the audience that “this isn’t your father’s (energy) boom” and that it will last as long as anyone in the room.
“I don’t anticipate a bust,” said Surdam, given national and global trends in energy demand and supply.
Given current demand and growth for energy supplies, the world would have to discover the equivalent of the giant Saudi Arabia oil fields “every two years” to stay current with world demand, he said.
“You’ve seen the golden age of cheap, abundant energy,” Surdam said. Say goodbye “forever” to $1.50-per-gallon gas, and get ready for $4-per-gallon gas from now on.
He said Wyoming can anticipate a huge, new market for its natural gas as a pipeline is built into the Midwest and the Chicago market loses a dependable supply of natural gas from Canada -- gas that will be diverted to develop the tar sand fields of Alberta.
Wyoming is producing 500 million tons of coal per year, but that could jump to 600 million tons if another railroad could reach the Powder River Basin coal fields, he said.
What all of that means is that Wyoming is the No. 1 energy exporting state in the nation, producing 10 quadtrillion British thermal units of energy every year -- enough to fuel the energy needs of California, the seventh biggest economy in the world.
Warming Earth
Randy Udall, of Colorado’s Community Office for Resource Efficiency, warned summit participants that they're already seeing the effects of global warming, with worse to come. Warmer winters and summers, less snow, earlier runoff, fires and intense drought are becoming the new normal.
Udall said scientists are still debating which climate computer model best predicts the future of the Rocky Mountains: warmer and wetter, or warmer and drier? If warmer and drier, the nation’s breadbasket in the Plains would be disastrously damaged, he said, while Wyoming’s habitat would look more like Colorado and even New Mexico.
Referring to Surdam’s reference that Wyoming could meet all of California’s energy needs, Udall said, “California is cannibalizing Wyoming, hollowing you out like a pumpkin."
The coal question is a global dilemma for China and the United States, he said, because those two countries have the biggest coal reserves. “We’ve got to find a way to use this most abundant of fuels, but there’s 10 times more fuel in the world’s coal than the world’s forests,” he said.
If all that coal carbon was released, he warned, the entire earth would change, and not for the better. He predicted that in 20 to 30 years, global warming will wreak such devastating impacts that coal-burning power plants will be bulldozed, or will be viewed as military targets.
The difference between doing something now to curtail carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and letting it build up, is a global temperature increase of 5 to 10 degrees, he said.
Because Wyoming has so much energy, Udall urged the state to spearhead the development of new energy technologies, including wind and solar. “If Wyoming didn’t have coal, I’m convinced you’d be the world’s leader in producing wind energy,” he said.
Open space
Using a series of maps developed by The Nature Conservancy, Wyoming Game and Fish and federal land agencies, Wyoming Nature Conservancy Director Andrea Erickson-Quiroz warned that the state has much to lose from residential development.
According to a survey taken by the American Farm Land Trust, she said, Wyoming has 2.6 million acres of high-quality ranchland at risk of residential development by 2020. That means that Wyoming is looking at a large-scale transformation of open space.
Looking at roads, pipelines, oil and gas development, mines and ag lands converted to residential properties, some 30 percent of Wyoming shows multiple levels of habitat degradation. “But that’s a lot for a population of half a million,” she said.
Speculating aloud, Erickson-Quiroz said one strategy Wyoming might pursue is the idea of tapping intensely developed energy areas such as the Jonah Field for the money needed to save the rest of the state -- the high-value sites that are critical for wildlife. She later emphasized that does not mean letting energy companies off the hook for on- and off-site mitigation or creation of anything-goes sacrifice zones. Instead, she recommended using revenues from energy development to maximum leverage in saving wildlife habitat.
“We’ve got to find common ground,” she said, “incentivize and support the private landowners who volunteer to help, engage with industry to optimize the balance between energy development and habitat, and plan for change.” That could mean looking for Colorado and New Mexico species in Wyoming.
How much?
Bob Budd, director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, related a story about how he got to wondering how much would it cost to purchase and save all the vital wildlife habitat in Wyoming.
He asked the Ruckelshaus Institute at the University of Wyoming. Months later, Budd called up Ruckelshaus Director Harold Bergman to see if anyone had figured out the answer.
“I asked Harold if they’d run the numbers, and Harold said they had,” Budd said.
Well, what’s the bottom line, asked Budd.
“It’s too scary,” Bergman responded.
What David “Tex” Taylor of the Ruckelshaus Institute had figured out was a price tag of $5 billion.
Budd said he wondered if that was too low a figure, as it doesn’t include all the habitat restoration work that needs to be done.
Rolling through a series of slides about conservation and habitat restoration programs run by federal agencies, Budd estimated that Wyoming has an unmet need for conservation and restoration projects of $180 million a year. He said the wave of the future lies with landowner-initiated projects such as those emerging from the Thunder Basin and Shirley Basin.
