Field and Stream Magazine Attacks Bush's Environmental Policies

JPZenger

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Thu Apr-13-06 01:48 PM
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Field and Stream Magazine Attacks Bush's Environmental Policies

Edited on Thu Apr-13-06 01:48 PM by JPZenger

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/conservation/article/0,13199,489794,00.html

A major article by a columnist in Field and Stream Magazine attacks the Bush Administration policies for their effects on hunting and fishing. Here's an excerpt:

"...the policy has prioritized drilling over other uses on federal lands, while relegating long-standing conservation mandates from the 1960s and �70s to the back burner. For example, in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management has approved over 75 percent of the energy industry�s applications for exemptions to work in critical winter range, heretofore closed to protect wildlife�sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorns, in particular (the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 gave agencies the means to close critical habitat). The BLM has also continued to issue drilling leases while in the process of writing new resource management plans that still await public comment. In addition, the Bush administration is working hard to eliminate Wilderness Study areas�set aside for their scenic value as well as their importance to wildlife. Most disturbingly, Congress is now debating a national energy bill that would codify the policy, making it the law of the land rather than an executive order. Subsequent administrations�be they Republican or Democratic�would be unable to institute a more balanced management plan for our western lands without resorting to new congressional legislation.

The results of these actions�billed as promoting national energy security�have begun to turn vast tracts of the western United States into industrial landscapes. The winners are the energy companies, which have been able to acquire their leases for as little as $2 per acre. The casualties are big game, upland birds, cold- and warmwater fisheries, the traditional interests of hunters and anglers, and the economic welfare of communities whose livelihoods are based on outdoor recreation and ranching. The Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana�approximately 13 million acres of prairie, escarpments, and mountains�provides the starkest example of how the Bush administration�s unbridled energy policy is running roughshod over our public lands. The BLM�s final environmental impact statement for the area calls for about 66,000 new coalbed methane (CBM) wells (about 14,000 have already been drilled in Wyoming; several hundred in Montana), 26,000 miles of new roads, and 52,000 miles of new pipelines.

...Roads and pipelines aren�t the only way energy development is making wildlife more vulnerable. Wherever there are coal seams, CBM is trapped on the surface of the coal by water pressure. Pumping out the groundwater releases the methane, which rises to the surface, where it�s collected. However, each well discharges about 16,000 gallons of salinized water per day� 43 million gallons per month for the Powder River Basin alone. Not only are underground aquifers being rapidly depleted, but the discharged water must be put someplace. It�s been spread over the landscape; it�s emptied into rivers; it�s collected in infiltration pits. The salinized water kills forage for wildlife and livestock, and it pollutes waterways. Art Hayes Jr., whose family has ranched on the Tongue River since 1884, told me that the salinity level in the Tongue has gone up fivefold seasonally since a CBM company, Fidelity Exploration, began dumping water directly into the river. Both a tailwater fishery for rainbow and brown trout and a warmwater fishery for smallmouth bass and walleyes have been jeopardized..."