Sublette County, Wyoming – A peaceful protest on the Pinedale Anticline

In a county that as gone from just a few gas well to one with more wells than residents, there is a protest demonstration scheduled today, Sunday.

The Casper Star Tribune reports that a “retired high school science teacher Elaine Crumpley has helped organize what she’s calling a ‘peaceful protest.’ ” It will be from 1 to 3 p.m. on the Pinedale Anticline, the hill on top of the gas rich geological structure just west of the town of Pinedale.  The protest is to call attention to the proposed gas-field development plan.

Drilling on the Anticline and nearby fields, such as the huge Jonah gas field, has brought standard breaking ozone air pollution and the resulting smog, disruption of wildlife, and damage to ten of thousands of acres of high desert to the formerly scenic upper Green River valley.

Story in the Casper Star Tribune. By Chris Merrill.

Comments

  1. vicki Avatar
    vicki

    I wish I would have known sooner. I would have gone! Good luck-and good work.

  2. Rick Hammel Avatar
    Rick Hammel

    Vicki,

    I agree. I am only 3 1/2 hours south and I read this at 10:30 am on Sunday morning. Just not enough time.

    Rick

  3. Susan Rediger-Blackburn Avatar

    I am 30 mins away. I am going! Anything Anyone wants me to say>>>>> Cant wait. Glad I saw this here.

  4. vicki Avatar
    vicki

    Susan,
    I hope it went well. Thanks for going, I am glad some one from this blog went.
    I will be passing through your area in a few weeks, I hope to stop and say hi.
    Please let us know how it went.

  5. cowboy the cat Avatar
    cowboy the cat

    From Texas oil drilling to Pacific salmon fishing, this is always what happens. Wyoming may have been poor, for the most part before the deluge of natural gas development, but it had it’s pristine beauty. Pinedale, especially was a jewel. Now what? In 20 years you’ll have the remnents of the O&G industry, a bunch of left over residents with drug problems, scarred landcape with no wildlife on it, and no more tourism. And it’ll be poor again. People always come with promises of money and better times. They always deliver something entirely different. Now another place I loved is kicked to the ground. When will we learn? How’s the saying go? “Lord give me one more boom and I swear I won’t piss it away”…

    I feel guilty for abandoning Wyoming to “the wolves” so to speak, but I had no more energy. When a self proclaimed “naturalist” governor does backflips to allow industry to do whatever it wants, and the BLM issues directives to it’s wildlife staff that “Applications for Permits to Drill will be processed and approved in an expedient manner,” I was starting to hate my job, and I can’t have that. Nothing is worth losing my passion for my work. I feel recharged after graduate school, and maybe I’ll be back. I hope so. Good luck to those of you still fighting the good fight. I’m sorry I’m not there with you.

    Also sorry this became a rant.

Author

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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