Drilling for gas on The Mesa (Pinedale Anticline). Pinedale, WY and Wind River Mountains in the background. Photo by Ralph Maughan.
One well takes up a fair amount of space and disturbance. Over 3000 wells are planned in the Green River Basin beneath these mountains.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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I lived in New Mexico while a kid and never knew about the state’s oil-and-gas fields (in the southeast and eastern counties) until looking at a late-edition atlas of the state. As the Jonah basin is pockmarked with wells and infrastructure, so is a significant chunk of the high prairie of New Mexico.