August 28-29 Story
Citizens decry oil, gas leases
By Rebecca Huntington
JACKSON HOLE DAILY
Former Jackson resident Steve Dicenso moved to Alpine last fall because of the unrivaled recreational opportunities from mountain biking to snowmobiling to hiking found in the Wyoming Range.
"I've moved my life to Alpine because of this range," Dicenso said Thursday among a standing-room-only crowd in the Teton County Commission Chambers.
Dicenso was one of several citizens from across northwestern Wyoming who attended Thursday's meeting to decry a plan by the Bridger-Teton National Forest to sell oil and gas leases on more than 150,000 acres in the range.
Jen Lamb, of the National Outdoor Leadership School, described how her nonprofit group uses lands, now slated for leasing which could lead to roads, pipelines and drill pads, to teach backcountry skiing and winter camping.
"We are a big fan of roadless areas, they provide us with our best classrooms," Lamb said, noting that NOLS is the third-largest employer in Fremont County.
Barry Reiswig, who spoke as a private citizen but manages the National Elk Refuge, gave an impassioned plea to save areas such as Cliff Creek Falls, Hoback Peak and Ramshorn Peak from the industrialization that comes with drilling.
"We sure as hell don't need any more roads in the last best place in the state," Reiswig said. "Once a place like this is gone, it ain't ever coming back, and there are very few places like this left."
Tourist Rick Leiding, of Danville, Ill., postponed his trip to Yellowstone National Park to attend Thursday's meeting after reading about the lease sales in the newspaper, he said. Leiding started calling every conservation group he knows, from Ducks Unlimited to Whitetails Unlimited, and was planning a fund-raiser to support efforts to stop leasing in the Wyoming Range, he said.
"As an American citizen and a lover of the land, I am appalled," Leiding said. "This thing will go national. This is wrong, very wrong."
Citizens asked forest officials to pull the leases until there is a thorough environmental study of potential impacts and formal public comment.
But Bridger-Teton Supervisor Kniffy Hamilton said it was too late.
Environmental lawyers at the meeting disagreed, saying the Supreme Court has ruled that the Forest Service does retain discretion to make such decisions.
Hamilton has authorized Bureau of Land Management to auction the leases, some within 25 miles of Jackson, during sales in October and December. Leasing could come as close to Jackson as Cliff Creek in the Hoback Canyon, extend west to upper Star Valley and south beyond Big Piney.
Of the 157,658 acres slated for leasing, 70,331 would carry a no-surface occupancy stipulation, which means companies would have to do directional drilling from another parcel to extract oil and gas. But more than half of the leases would allow surface disturbances such as roads. Conservationists are concerned that 92,018 acres slated for leasing occur in inventoried roadless areas.
Citizens asked Hamilton if she was pressured by the Bush administration to speed up leasing in the Wyoming Range.
Hamilton said she did receive direction from Washington, D.C., but stressed that leasing is part of her agency's mission. "We are not the park service. Our mission is a multiple-use agency, and we're going to have some kind of development," she said.
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