Articles
Following are links to recently published articles concerning the Green River Valley:
The Progressive Farmer – “Saving a Valley”
2007-03-02 The words "conservationist" or "environmentalist" have never been used to describe Colorado rancher Randy Rusk—until now. It's a description he's not entirely comfortable with, insisting that he's still very much a mainstream ag producer. As passionate as he is about the title "rancher," and as much as he looks right at home in his boots and cowboy hat, his focus has shifted. At 56, Rusk is looking past how many head of yearling he'll run this year and ahead to how much open land will exist generations from now. ... more>
Preserving Your Land Forever
2007-03-01 Across the country, the small towns near our cabins are changing. Better highways, telecommuting and demographic shifts have put development pressure on our rural recreation areas. There is more demand for rural lands suitable for cabins, lodges, ranches – any getaway. ... more>
Audubon – “Sagebrush Showdown”
2007-02-01 In an unprecedented, pell-mell rush, oil and gas companies are having their way across the West’s federal lands. But neither they nor biologists bargained on a bird whose fate, like the northern spotted owl’s, may bring development to a halt across a wide area.
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Smithsonian Magazine – “End of the Road?”
2007-01-01 Development threatens to block the ancient migration of a herd of pronghorn antelopes in western Wyoming. Without new protections, conservationists say, the speedy animals are running out of time. ... more>
Public Lands at Risk
2005-07-01 A multiyear study of oil and gas resources under federal lands focused on five areas in the Rocky Mountain region that may harbor enough natural gas to satisfy U.S. demand for six years. Most of the gas is difficult to extract and remains economically unrecoverable—too costly to tap. But new drilling technology, rising gas prices, and an energy-focused administration are fueling a dramatic rise in drilling on the federal estate. ... more>
Drilling the West
2005-07-01 There is a good chance if you purchase property in Wyoming (and many other areas in the Rocky Mountain West) you may not be getting ownership of as much of the property as you think you are. An estimated 48 percent of the private land in the state of Wyoming is split estate, meaning one party owns the surface land rights and another the subsurface mineral rights. ... more>
Drilling in West Pits Republican Policy Against Republican Base
2005-06-22 As a sometime carpenter, Keith Goddard has all the work he can handle in this place where new houses rise with the sun and a gas well is poked into the ground just about every other day. But Mr. Goddard is worried sick. From his backyard here on Colorado's... ... more>
Wyoming wildlife faces twin threats
2005-01-24 PINEDALE, Wyoming — Every spring and fall, a herd of pronghorn passes through a series of hay meadows on the western edge of town. The antelope are migrating between the Wind River Mountains and winter range in the sagebrush of the Upper Green River Valley. ... more>
For good or ill, Bush clears path for energy development
2004-10-04 PINEDALE, Wyoming - (KRT) - Roads and well-drilling pads etched from the sagebrush now stretch to the horizon in ghostly cul-de-sacs. A decade ago this wind-swept swath of country was largely untouched by humans. Today, nearly 500 natural-gas wells dot the Green River Valley, and the Bush administration has called for up to 3,100. The Bush administration failed in two attempts to persuade Congress to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. But it helped choreograph an energy boom that is transforming the Rocky Mountains into the country's newest energy frontier. ... more>
Bush's Energy Policy Lives Where the Deer and the Antelope Play
2003-12-14 Drilling for natural gas is accelerating in Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming, raising concerns about how it might affect winter migration of antelope and winter range of thousands of mule dear; Priscilla Mecham of Bureau of Land Management is working to develop new land-use plan for Upper Green that could force staged development of gas fields or allow maximum number of wells in minimum feasible time; photos; map ... more>
Rallying to Protect U.S. Antelope Migration Route
2003-03-28 National Parks aren't designated to protect wildlife, but today they've become reservoirs of biodiversity," said Kim Berger, an Idaho-based biologist with WCS who is studying the pronghorn and their predators. "Part of what we hope to do in the parks is preserve intact ecosystems. Loss of the pronghorn would compromise that ecosystem." ... more>
WYOMING: Gas development affecting wildlife
2002-10-09 BIG PINEY, Wyo. (AP) – The Wilderness Society claims a decade of oil and gas exploration and development is affecting a key antelope migration corridor in the Upper Green River Basin. ... more>