CHEYENNE — A legal challenge by environmental groups won’t halt plans to drill 2,000 oil and gas wells in southwest Wyoming following an appeals court ruling in Washington, D.C.
About 400 wells have been drilled so far in the remote sagebrush desert — mostly shallow, coal-bed methane wells.
Environmental groups challenged a 2007 U.S. Bureau of Land Management decision allowing the drilling over 422 square miles in the Atlantic Rim area.
A district court judge in Washington, D.C., sided with the BLM and its allies last year, saying the agency allowed necessary public comment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld the ruling July 23.
The drilling is expected to produce enough natural gas to heat 19.3 million homes for a year and generate $958 million in local, state and federal taxes and royalties, according to the BLM.
Companies have invested heavily in the Atlantic Rim area, said Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.
BP is putting $2.2 billion in the nearby Wamsutter area.
The Western Watersheds Project, Wyoming Outdoor Council, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, and others accused the BLM in two lawsuits of violating the National Environmental Policy Act.
The groups said the BLM failed to take a hard look at the consequences of drilling, including ignoring data about how best to manage sage grouse and mule deer numbers.
The state of Wyoming and gas producers Anadarko, Warren Resources and Double Eagle Petroleum intervened on the BLM’s side.
“We’re seeing an awful lot of lawsuits trying to shut the industry down, not only in this state but in other states,” Hinchey said.
The ruling means BLM will continue monitoring sage grouse, mule deer and other wildlife in the drilling area as outlined by the 2007 plan, said Travis Bargsten, a physical scientist for the BLM state office in Cheyenne.
Tom Franklin, policy and government relations director for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership in Washington, said the rulings show that federal laws don’t adequately protect wildlife on public land.
“We are going to have to sort of reassess where we are in the whole national policy debate over conservation of these resources,” he said.
