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Noble Basin, about 40 miles south of Grand Teton National
Park, is much more than a beautiful piece of the Old West. It
is a major thoroughfare for elk, pronghorn, grizzlies, and other
wildlife moving through the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
But that could change. Houston-based PXP wants
to develop a 136-well gas field in the heart of
the basin, at the foot of the Wyoming Range.
PXP would extract the gas via hydraulic fracturing
(fracking) in an area that is part of a vulnerable
aquifer and is in the headwaters of the Hoback
River —a wild and scenic river. Emissions would
degrade the air over Grand Teton and adjacent
national forests.
“Environmental logger” Dave Willoughby, 66,
has spent much of his life in the Wyoming Range. I
met him at Daniel Junction north of Pinedale, and
we headed west, climbing along roads past sandhill
cranes summering in wet meadows and ranches
overlooking the Wind Rivers to the east. We
made our way to the two-track on Forest Service
land, and I listened as Willoughby’s memories
flowed: his granddaughter’s first elk, wife Linda’s
trophy moose, deer and elk taken by sons Chad
and Derek.
We headed down into the basin through
fields of gold balsamroot wildflowers lined with
aspen. Our entire route is slated to become a twolane
highway with an estimated 183 semi-trailers
rumbling through every day.
We came to Davie’s Hill—Dave couldn’t recall
who named it for him—and scanned the rolling
sage and aspen below. We saw creeks, seeps,
and streams where colorful Snake River cutthroat
trout spawn before migrating 30 miles to meet
the Snake River just south of Grand Teton. PXP’s
vision for that landscape includes a pilot wildcat
rig (“Eagle One”), which would drill three test
holes before construction of the 17-pad, 136-well
gas field, with compressor stations, a pipeline, 29
miles of new or upgraded road, and toxic waste
storage. Willoughby broke the silence, saying,
“This is where my wife and I will go when we die.”
While most Wyoming residents accept the
reality of oil and gas development in their state,
they cherish their natural legacy, and a growing
number are concerned about the impacts of drilling.
“By 2006 the massive and destructive Jonah
and Pinedale Anticline fields were there for all to
www.wilderness.org
see,” recalls The Wilderness Society’s Stephanie
Kessler, who is based in Lander. “There has been
significant air and water pollution, as well as declines
in wildlife populations.”
Determined to prevent
similar destruction
in the Wyoming Range,
a broad spectrum of individuals
and organizations
created Citizens
for the Wyoming Range
(CFWR). It includes ranchers,
chambers of commerce,
sportsmen, and
even oil and gas workers.
Before long the state’s
two Republican senators
introduced the Wyoming
Range Legacy Act, and
Congress passed it in
© Dave Showalter
2009. The bill prevented
drilling on 1.2 million
acres of Bridger-Teton National Forest.
But that law did not tamper with valid existing
lease rights, so PXP still had the opportunity to
pursue development in the Noble Basin. In early
2011, after the Forest Service issued a draft environmental
analysis for the project that allowed
the drilling, more than 60,000 citizens, organizations,
politicians, and government agencies submitted
comments on the proposal—95 percent
of them raising concerns. The Wyoming Game
and Fish Department faulted the agency for using
“outdated and/or obscure research. The authors
should better justify their statements with proven
science…”
Kim Floyd, executive secretary of the
Wyoming AFL-CIO, criticized the Forest Service
for failing to properly account for the potential income
from hunting, fishing, and other recreation,
which totaled more than $2.5 billion in 2009 “and
is a renewable resource.”
With legacy on my mind, I called Carl Bennett
of Rock Springs, who likes to call himself “a son
The Wyoming
Range is
important to
many species,
including
grizzlies, elk,
moose, mule
deer, pronghorn,
and lynx.
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