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Energy development imperils habitat

Friday, November 2 at 12:00 AM

By John Ellenberger, Grand Junction

The subtle tilt in the sun’s angle, a slight cooling in the evening air and the first smudge of changing colors quickens the pulse of many of us just a bit. Hunting, it’s often said, gets into one’s blood. It’s just an old saying, with an element of truth.

But for many Westerners who cherish our Western hunting traditions and the long heritage they embody, there’s also a nagging feeling that the rapidly changing landscape of the Rocky Mountains is already crowding fish and game out of critical habitats.

Northwest Colorado’s Piceance Basin is ground zero for natural gas drilling. The Piceance rolls and rises over 2,000 square miles of prime wildlife habitat. Mule deer from the nearby Roan Plateau to as far away as Steamboat Springs follow ancient migration routes each fall back to the Piceance. The basin, also home to sage grouse, elk and dozens of other native species, is the winter range mule deer and other wildlife depend on during the bitterest cold of a Rocky Mountain winter. Without it, the herds cannot thrive.

But the Piceance is changing fast. Some of the world’s largest multinational conglomerates have been drawn to the gas deposits beneath these wide-open spaces like a moth to a flame.
ExxonMobil, which has acquired mineral leases on thousands of acres of public and private land in the basin, is betting that a $500 million investment will pay off handsomely when they drill hundreds, if not thousands of new wells. Marathon, British Petroleum and EnCana Energy are also setting their sights on the Piceance.

The attention from these and other major energy companies prompted a top Colorado energy official to predict earlier this year that “The Piceance Basin could very well become known as the largest natural gas field in the United States.”

The Piceanace’s winter range is so important to Northwest Colorado’s wildlife that veteran wildlife biologists dubbed it the deer factory for its role in sustaining the largest mule deer herd in the region. If the Piceance is sacrificed for energy development, we risk losing a wildlife heritage that is the envy of much of the nation and world. Habitat for mule deer, sage grouse, native trout and elk is in even shorter supply than oil and gas. And while there is a growing array of clean, practical and wildlife-friendly renewable energy sources, critical winter range is irreplaceable.
Destroying the habitat is not only a waste; it’s a needless waste.

We also risk losing the sustainable economic returns that wildlife recreation provides.

Energy development will continue. Coloradans and the rest of the nation need natural gas for our homes and factories. But that doesn’t mean we must sacrifice our lifestyles, traditions and sustainable economies in the rush to exploit a resource.

Some in industry attempt to portray veteran hunters and anglers as “overzealous environmentalists” out to stop energy development. That’s simply not true. As a group, hunters and anglers tend to be politically conservative. We’ve been reluctant to throw our support to what are viewed as “liberal” environmental issues. The fact that, as “sportsmen,” we are beginning to raise our voices in opposition to unbridled development underscores our deep concern about energy development’s impact on wildlife and habitat.

When this energy play winds down in the West, as it inevitably will, what’s going to be left for Westerners and all Americans who cherish our public lands and wildlife? The multinational energy firms will move on to the next hot play, as will their dollars and their employees.

If we’re to have the wildlife resource that helps define and sustain a significant portion of the West, it’s up to us to demand reasonable protections.

As hunters, we ask that the needs of wildlife and the protection of the habitat our native species need to survive needs to be fully and fairly factored in before energy development begins, not as an afterthought. And energy companies must be required by our state and federal agencies to adhere to regulations that strike the reasonable balance we seek.

To do otherwise is to abandon the very things that make all of us love this land and the natural resources that make the Rocky Mountain West one of Earth’s last, best places.

John Ellenberger is Colorado’s former big game manager and an avid hunter and angler who lives in Grand Junction.

READER COMMENTS

Be tired to of the activist judges that accept law suits stopping energy development.

The windmill farm down south of here was even taken to court because a bird was killed running into one of the blades.. good god.. what utter stupidity...

As long as we have a minority being more important than the majority we will be lost..
One kid supposedly "gets offended" by "under God" in the pledge and 1,000 kids are denied it..

One protestor is offended by a Christmas Tree light and 38,000 do without it..

What's that all about? Where's the will of the majority with some safeguards allowed for a minority. It was never meant that the minority should bear such weight upon the will of most... Benny and Tommy and Georgy are turning over in their graves..

Posted by Gary Vincent O'Malley on November 7, 2007 05:42 PM

Who in industry have portrayed hunters as "overzealous environmentalists"??? Can you give an example?

Most of the folks I know in the natural gas industry are hunters themselves. And according to the DOW, game populations are up all over the state. What are you complaining about?

Sounds to me like you have a political agenda.

Posted by Bobby b on November 5, 2007 10:42 AM

John is sitting around the campfire singing "Home on the Range" as the world passes him by. Its not 1947 any more, John, we are in a new age of global economics and finance. We are competiting for our very economic and financial survival.

The entire planet is in a rapidly globalizing economy that depends on energy. We have to comepete globally for our jobs, incomes, wealth, prosperity and national security. And energy is a driver of this 21st century environment. The energy rich-ANWR, the outer-continental shelf, the Roan and Vermillion, coal, shale, natural gas, nuclear power and crude oil refineries--all pushed out of bounds for decades by the environuts--needs to be brough back into play and re-introduced to our 21st century economic environment.

I'm pro-people, pro-USA, pro-free-market capitalism and love global competition. I love wealth creation and I just love low costs, low prices, low inflation and low interest rates. I also enjoyed taking big game all over North America and had an off-shore fishing boat that brought me to the Farallon Islands some 30-miles off the coast of the GG bridge every weekend for 10 years. But I grew up with higher priorities. Its time for Bambi, the spotted owl and the snail-darter to step aside. People have rights too.

Posted by Hank on November 3, 2007 10:06 AM

Gee, you sound just like the group that said the Alaskan pipeline was going to ruin Alaska and all of the wildlife.

Never happen nope nada....

In fact just the opposite has happened, the pipline has helped the wild life.

So keep yelling wolf, wolf, wolf...

Tired of guys like you that keep yelling about using our resources!

Posted by gary on November 2, 2007 04:18 PM