ROCK SPRINGS, WYO. — The Wyoming Environmental Quality Council took comments this week on the future of Adobe Town in southwest Wyoming from people who said they value the area for its natural splendor and those who prize it for economic-development potential.
The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance has petitioned the council to designate roughly 180,000 acres that include and surround Adobe Town as a “very rare or uncommon” area.
Such a designation would grant the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality a platform from which it could deny permits for natural-gas drilling in the area.
Under state statute, the only way the EQC can designate any area “rare or uncommon” is to receive a petition from a concerned party, like the BCA.
To assign the designation, the EQC must find that an area has significant historical, archaeological, wildlife, surface geological or scenic value and determine that at least one of its values is rare or uncommon compared to the rest of Wyoming.
An 80,000-acre portion of Adobe Town, which is located in the Red Desert southeast of Rock Springs, is protected as a wilderness study area by the Bureau of Land Management. This protected area would be included in the “rare or uncommon” area under the petition.
The council heard six hours of debate Wednesday from 19 people, including a representative from the BCA, a handful of oil- and-gas-industry representatives, college professors, county officials and generally concerned citizens. Public comment was to continue Thursday.
The petition’s proponents said Adobe Town possesses unparalleled scenic values. Its opponents said the petitioners intend to use the designation as fodder to lobby for further environmental protection.
