Drilling where antelope play

On a windswept butte in the upper Green River valley, biologist Steve Belinda watches a herd of pronghorn antelope as a line of red Halliburton trucks rumble down a dusty road below.

In front of him is an intersection of sprouting gas derricks, nomadic wildlife, and, on the horizon, the serrated caps of the Wind River mountain range. The convergence of the three is creating a clash here in western Wyoming as part of one of the largest energy booms in United States history.

How the US Bureau of Land Management succeeds - or fails - to balance energy demands with protecting what many call "North America's winter Serengeti" could impact drilling disputes from Alaska to Florida as environmentalists clash with the Bush administration over

opening up more public land to development.

"We've got a world-class gas play occurring in the same landscape that is home to world-class populations of wildlife," says Mr. Belinda, the lead wildlife scientist with the Pinedale office of the BLM. "I think we can have both without sacrificing one for the other."

Here in Wyoming, the expanding footprint of energy development in Sublette County, with two major gas fields, a major oil field, and a large coalbed, has far-reaching implications on the southern end of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

More than 100,000 deer, antelope, and elk depart the deep snows of the mountains every autumn to spend their winters here - a winter concentration larger than in Yellowstone National Park. Moreover, the area encompassing the anticline and nearby Jonah Gas Field also offers habitat for sage grouse (recently a candidate for federal protection), nomadic grizzly bears, wolves, mountain lions, moose, eagles, hawks, and several different other kinds of migratory birds.

"We are at a tipping point in the Upper Green as the drilling boom already is harming wildlife," said Peter Aengst, an activist with the Wilderness Society, which recently released a report with other groups claiming wildlife and air quality are being significantly impaired.

Last year, preliminary research conducted by independent biologist Hall Sawyer, as part of a long-term study funded by Questar Exploration, indicated that gas wells, the network of roads, and traffic were displacing one of the largest populations of mule deer from critical habitat.

"Whether it's elk, antelope, mule deer, or sage grouse, evidence shows that constraints on road use and new energy developments are needed to ensure healthy wildlife populations over the long term," says Mr. Aengst.

Many believe that if the energy production around Pinedale is mishandled and environmental destruction occurs, it could jeopardize efforts to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling in the wake of a recent Senate vote enabling development to proceed there in 10 years.

New Mexico, with its own controversial gas drilling slated to expand on the state's wildlife-rich Otero Mesa, is also carefully watching what happens in Wyoming's gas fields.

"Everything we do here is being placed under a microscope," Belinda says of industry proposals to triple the number of gas wells in Sublette County to nearly 10,000.

"We recognize that Pinedale is the center of the world for the BLM and its approach to gas development," Belinda adds. "Energy fields on public lands are one of the most challenging things for a biologist to mitigate. The [political tensions] are high."

Complicating the politics in the Bush administration are calls to slow down the pace of development coming not only from main-line environmental groups but also from conservative hunters and anglers.

One prominent sportsman is Rollie Sparrowe, the former president of the Wildlife Management Institute, who retired to the Pinedale area with his wife and now works for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Mr. Sparrowe has voiced his concerns directly to senior Bush administration officials who oversee federal land management agencies. He also heard President Bush promise that energy development would be balanced with environmental protection.

Yet, some longtime supporters of the president say that pledge is being unfulfilled.

Sparrowe first discovered this corner of Wyoming 40 years ago when he worked as a naturalist in Yellowstone National Park. For a quarter century, he came to the wildlands outside Pinedale every fall on big game hunting trips. Today some of the very herds of mule deer, elk, and pronghorn antelope that left him smitten with Sublette County are in trouble.

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