Gas, Oil and Public Lands:
Hunter and Anglers Beware!

by David Stalling
Western Field Coordinator, Trout Unlimited
and
Vice-President of Internal Affairs, Montana Wildlife Federatin
April/May 2003

(Photo by: Peter Aengst, ©2003)

There are responsible ways to extract gas and oil and there are, well, other ways: In 1969, the federal government and El Paso Natural Gas Company considered using underground nuclear explosions to unlock natural gas near Pinedale, Wyoming. A similar proposal, made up of out-of-state corporations and endorsed by Wyoming’s governor, was dubbed “The Wyoming Atomic Stimulation Project.” If these projects had actually gone through, there’s no telling what the impacts may have been on wildlife.

Though not quite as sensational as nuclear probing, there are energy development efforts now underway that are equally irresponsible, with enormous implications for fish and wildlife—and, therefore, hunting and fishing. Hunters and angler need to pay close attention to these threats, and get involved.

Our national energy plan calls for unprecedented gas and oil development on public lands throughout the Rocky Mountain West, in some of the most wild places—with some of the best hunting and fishing—in the United States. With the White House casting increased production and development of oil and gas as a national security issue, watershed protection and wildlife conservation are increasingly characterized as “impediments” to oil and gas production. Last year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service identified “40 tasks” needed to “help streamline processes, increase access and availability, and increase certainty” of oil and gas production on public lands. No mention was made of the need to protect and conserve important fish and wildlife resources. In fact, BLM issued a directive in January that called for the preparation of “Statements of Adverse Energy Impacts” when decisions by field managers “have a direct or indirect adverse impact on energy development, production, supply, and/or distribution.” In response to the Energy Policy Conservation Act (EPCA), the BLM is developing a new policy to “overcome impediments” to public land oil and gas exploration and development. Chief among these “impediments” are stipulations to protect wildlife and fish. Such actions turn traditional multiple use management on its head by elevating one use of the public lands—oil and gas exploration and development—to a dominant position. The BLM has recently identified 21 land use plans covering tens of millions of acres in the Rocky Mountain West that it intends to “revise” in order to allow for accelerated oil and gas development. The Forest Service will likely follow suit by amending existing forest plans that currently prohibit, or severely limit oil and gas development, such as on the Lewis and Clark and Helena National Forests along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front.

The ecological effects of traditional gas and oil development and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) development on public lands are extensive. Although the actual “footprint” of a well or pad may be relatively small, production requires pervasive infrastructure and development that can contaminate ground and surface water supplies, degrade fish habitat, and fragment wildlife corridors, calving grounds, and nesting areas. In the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming alone, proposed gas and oil development calls for 66,000 new wells, 26,000 miles of new roads, 5,300 miles of power lines, 20,000 miles of pipeline, 500 -1,200 water discharge facilities, more than 1,000 compression stations, more than 3,000 infiltration pits, and thousands of discharge points for nearly two trillion gallons of “produced” water. According to the Powder River Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), the project would affect eight million acres and 18 major and minor watersheds; 211, 922 acres will suffer “short-term disturbance,” and 108, 799 will suffer “long-term disturbance.” All this in a place that’s home to more than 157,000 mule deer, 109,000 pronghorn, and significant populations of elk, whitetail and sage grouse; and in a place that provides the public with 1.881 million visitor days per year, of which 39,328 days per year are elk hunters and 50,000 days per year are deer hunters.

And that’s just the Powder River Basin. There are similar projects proposed on public lands throughout Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. These projects put oil and gas first, with little, if any, consideration for wildlife.

So how might we expect this to affect fisheries, big game and hunting and fishing?

Potential impacts include reduced water quality, reduced water quantity, loss of habitat, habitat fragmentation, habitat disturbance, reduced habitat security and increased big game vulnerability. Since few wildlife biologists are involved in the planning process, and because very little research has been conducted, there is more that we don’t know than know. How will discharges of CBM waste water, high in dissolved solids and sodium, affect streams, tributaries and wetlands? What impacts will altered soil conditions have on streamside and riparian vegetation? With each CBM well dewatering coal seams at an average of 15,000 gallons per day, how will stream flows be affected? How will roads and increased noise and activity affect movements and use of habitat by elk, deer, pronghorn and sage grouse? What will the impacts be on winter range, migratory corridors and calving and fawning habitat? Will increased access to previously roadless lands increase hunting pressure, reduce habitat security, increase big game vulnerability and therefore, eventually, reduce hunting opportunities? Then there’s a question of aesthetics: Is a drastically altered and industrialized landscape, where you want to hunt and fish? Much of the reason I hunt, fish, hike and backpack is to get away, into wild places of solitude, away from human disturbance. Such places are becoming increasingly scarce and, to paraphrase Will Rogers, nobody’s making any more of it.

There are a lot of unanswered, and partially answered, questions, and a serious lack of analysis and disclosure about the potential impacts of such massive, wide-scale gas and oil development on public lands.

“There is not a lot of applicable research on the effects of saline wastewater on fish populations, and there are no water quality regulations to govern the coal-bed methane wastewater discharges,” says Don Skaar, Water Pollution Biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “There are some water-quality regulations for agricultural impacts being worked on, and they may provide some protection for fisheries, but we just do not know at this point. There is no salt-loading standard on trout.”

Potential impacts on big game are similarly unknown. According to the Powder River DEIS only “one percent of mule deer winter range and yearlong range will be permanently disturbed.” But the document also concedes that “habitat fragmentation may alter big game use of habitat.” Affects on wildlife reach far beyond the physical area of impact. At the Big Piney-Labarge Oil and Gas Field in Wyoming, the physical area of oil and gas structures, roads, pipelines, pads and waste pits consumes only seven square miles of habitat. But the entire 166-square mile project area is within one-half mile of a road, pipeline, well or other structure. About 160 square miles, or 97 percent of the landscape, falls within one-quarter mile of the infrastructure. How might that affect habitat security and big game vulnerability? One thing is certain: 26,000 miles of new roads in the Powder River Basin is bound to have some impact. One Wyoming wildlife biologist recently put it this way: “Think of the road network as a spiderweb. Crush the spiderweb and roll it into a ball and it’s statistically insignificant, but fully extended it controls and dominates its entire area. It’s the area of influence that matters, not the actual acres consumed.”

More to the point, in an article for the Mule Deer Foundation’s Mule Deer magazine, writer Dale Ackels wrote, “Remove the best habitat from eight million acres and deny its use to 150,000 mule deer, and you have some idea of the potential impact of uncontrolled CBM development in northern Wyoming.” And, we might add, southeast Montana.

All of these concerns—water quality, water quantity, habitat fragmentation, habitat disturbance, aesthetics, and so on—each of these potential impacts is serious enough by themselves. But consider the cumulative impacts, spread throughout such a large landscape, and being proposed on such a large, unprecedented scale, and we can expect severe and significant impacts on fish, wildlife and hunting and fishing.

Certainly our nation needs gas and oil, but at what cost? We can gain more energy independence and security through a combination of responsible gas and oil development, energy conservation and pursuing alternative sources of energy. We do not need to sacrifice our wildlife and hunting and fishing heritage to irresponsible development. We need to ensure that our public lands are managed for multiple uses, and that oil and gas does not have priority over (and become detrimental to) wildlife, and hunting and fishing interests. Since hunters and anglers have such a huge stake in how our public lands are managed, we need to get more involved. We need to ensure that potential impacts on fish and wildlife are thoroughly examined and disclosed in regards to gas and oil development on public lands. Where development does occur, we need to ensure that proper mitigations and stipulations are in place, and enforced, to protect wildlife. We need to ensure that monitoring is conducted, and plans are accordingly adjusted, if and when needed, to protect wildlife. We also need to insist that some places—such as crucial winter range, migratory corridors and fawning and calving habitat—remain off limits to development. In other places, our land management agencies need to slow down, and develop a better understanding of potential impacts before preceding with such ambitious, wide-scale developments across the landscape. These are our lands, our wildlife; have a say in how they’re managed.

More than 50 million Americans hunt and fish, contributing $108 billion to the U.S. economy (nearly $1 billion in Montana alone.) We hunters tend to be politically moderate to conservative, and are viewed as “partners” by state and federal agencies. Surveys also reveal that most of us are “unaffiliated” with hunting and angling groups. In other words, we could—and should—be a powerful and influential voice. In his article for Mule Deer, Dale Ackels wrote: “If mule deer are going to be defended by anyone, it will likely be hunters and those among us who simply love the West for what it is, and for all it contains that enriches our lives.” The same is true for elk, whitetail, pronghorn, sage grouse, brown trout and all the other wildlife we cherish and pursue.

Numerous environmental groups, including The Wilderness Society and Greater Yellowstone Coalition, are working hard to address energy development. A coalition of environmental groups has formed the Rocky Mountain Energy Campaign to gather and disseminate information, and help protect public lands. But for the most part, hunters and anglers have been too silent on the issue. Fly Fisherman Magazine and Mule Deer have run informative articles, and the Montana Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation have been actively involved. While certainly there’s crossover, and labels can be misleading, “environmentalists,” hunters and anglers don’t always work together. But if we’re to protect our fish and wildlife from irresponsible gas and oil development, we need to. As writer Richard Nelson puts it:

“After we’ve lost a natural place, it’s gone for everyone—hikers, campers, boaters, bicyclists, animals watchers, fishers, hunters, and wildlife—a complete and absolutely democratic tragedy of emptiness. For this reason, it’s vital that we overcome our differences, find common ground in our shared love for the natural world, and work together to defend the wild.”

MWF board member David Stalling lives in Missoula. As the Western Field Coordinator for Trout Unlimited, he is spearheading Hunters and Anglers for Responsible Energy Development, focusing on gas and oil development on public lands in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. For more information, and to assist in the effort, contact Dave at: dstalling@tu.org, or call: (406) 721-4441.

Copyright © 2003 MWF