Dennis Buechler doesn’t suffer from any wild-eyed protectionist delusions.
He’s heard the news, oh, boy. Felt the pressure at the pump. As an automobile owner with a home heating bill in a nation facing a perpetual energy squeeze. The Centennial resident knows full well that demands for oil and gas exploration isn’t going away.
But Buechler is big on balance. He believes these holes can be punched into the earth with far less damage to those other natural resources that make Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West a special place to live. Things like deer, elk, trout and scenic splendor.
Buechler volunteers as the Issues Committee chairman of the Colorado Wildlife Federation, a broad-
based organization of sportsmen and conservationists that has taken the lead in key outdoor issues ranging from license allocation to environmental protection.
More recently, CWF has formed a coalition with counterparts in Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico urging federal and state agencies to guarantee responsible energy development.
“The tens of thousands of wells and accompanying roads and pipelines over the next decade will have more impact on our public lands, water and wildlife habitat than anything we’ve seen before,” Buechler predicted.
“People who like to hunt, fish and view wildlife may be dismayed a couple of decades along the way about what happened to their public lands.”
What troubles CWF most is the unbridled immensity of ongoing exploration, coupled with long-term concerns over the industry’s poor record of reclamation. Stir in the anything-goes attitude of the pro-
development administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Owens, and we have the ingredients for environmental turmoil.
“The industry says it can do this or that. We say, ‘Show us,”‘ Buechler said. “Put requirements on these leases to make sure they do it right. That just isn’t being done.”
CWF earlier formed a partnership with the Colorado Mule Deer Association, one of the few outdoor groups to make a peep of protest, to establish a series of guidelines for oil and gas leasing, 10 points covering everything from preparation to restoration.
“We’re only asking that the best practices be followed,” Buechler said. “If they did that, it would solve at least half the problems. But that hasn’t been the history.”
Colorado’s focus has centered on the Roan Plateau, a wildlife-rich area north of Interstate 70 west of Rifle facing intense development. The plateau and its environs are important for deer and elk reproduction and wintering as well as habitat for the rare Colorado River cutthroat trout.
“The draft environmental impact statement the Bureau of Land Management put out a year ago didn’t give me any comfort,” Buechler said.
Nor does the reaction of a state wildlife agency caught in a double political bind perpetuated by a governor who never met a drill hole he didn’t like. As it is in too many situations, the Division of Wildlife finds itself compromised as part of larger bureaucracy that owes more to the special interests of wealth than to the public good.
Like so many elements of our society, energy development has become highly politicized.
Sportsmen seem slow at crying foul on governmental obeisance to a giant energy industry growing fat at the expense of the nation.
In a frantic rush toward developing everything in sight during the current administration, the industry has been drilling nonstop. Large parts of Wyoming now look like a giant pin cushion, and all the while natural gas prices continue to soar.
As Buechler points out, the energy bill recently rammed through congress with all the attendant scare tactics serves to transfer more money and power to the energy giants to drill bigger and better with even less concern for our wildlife resources.
“We’ll pay for it down the line,” he said.
