WOC Appeals Pinedale Oil & Gas Leases

Southwest Wyoming is home to stunning landscapes, key wildlife migration routes for antelope, elk and mule deer and critical nesting sites for one of Wyoming's few remaining sage grouse strongholds. It also has massive reserves of natural gas.

Since industry has stated that southwest Wyoming is likely to be the largest producing conventional natural gas region in the U.S. by 2015, the area's priceless natural values are imminently at risk. In August, for example, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sold nearly 35,000 acres of federal oil and gas leases within the Pinedale resource area.

In its most recent oil and gas leasing appeal to the Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals, WOC, joined by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, appealed these leases sold for coalbed methane and other oil and gas development.

WOC, with Earthjustice providing co-counsel, argued two primary points. First, the number of approved wells in the resource area already exceeds the reasonably foreseeable development (RFD) scenario for oil and gas wells issued by the BLM in 1987. At that time, the agency predicted a total of 900 wells for the resource area by 2015. By 1999, however, the BLM had approved approximately 3,000 wells in the area. Of course, any new leasing will generate numbers of wells that far exceed the outdated RFD scenario that only studied 900 wells.

Second, the BLM's Pinedale office is currently amending its resource management plan (RMP). We pointed out that, during this process, the agency is charged with developing a new RFD scenario for future oil and gas, as well as determining which areas should be closed to oil and gas leasing and development due to special values, conflicts with other resources or public concerns. During the interim, all leasing must stop, since by leasing out tens of thousands of acres every two months, the BLM is foreclosing the option not to lease those areas at the conclusion of its RMP amendment process.

A decision on our request to temporarily halt development on the leases sold in August is expected in early 2002.