DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter | Posted: Friday, February 20, 2004 12:00 am
GILLETTE - Eighty-six percent of Wyoming voters would favor a new law to ensure landowners are consulted and fairly compensated when drilling projects impact their land, according to a polling firm.
And 85 percent prefer that the pace of mineral development be managed so communities don't go through boom-and-bust cycles.
The findings are based on 700 completed interviews with a random sample of Wyoming voters, according to Decision Research, a national polling firm.
The Wilderness Society commissioned Decision Research to conduct the poll, which took place in October. Oil and gas officials say they suspect the poll was carried out in a way that it produced desired results in support of the Wilderness Society's desire to see tighter controls on the industry.
A spokesman for the Wilderness Society denied the allegation, however, and said the method and questions used to conduct the poll are available to the public. Most importantly, the poll gives voice to the general public, which is usually lost in the chorus of political debate.
"To me, the big news from the poll was that it reconfirmed what I've always suspected about people in Wyoming, which is that they have a real sense of duty to the next generation - to their children - that they want to be good stewards of the land," said Peter Aengst, regional associate at the Wilderness Society's Northern Rockies office in Bozeman, Mont.
No argument there, said Dru Bower, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. Many of the concerns outlined in the survey are addressed under current regulation.
"It appears this survey was conducted with the intent to produce a desired result," Bower said.
Bower noted one result of the poll was that a majority of the voters polled (57 percent) oppose oil and gas drilling in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Although the boundaries of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are not defined in the poll, Bower noted that the industry currently is not permitted to drill in Yellowstone National Park or Grand Teton National Park.
Bower also said the industry is already required to reclaim lands disturbed by oil and gas development and it is required to post bonds to ensure reclamation.
In regard to a new law to ensure landowner input and compensation for impacts related to mineral development, Bower said the industry recognizes the need for some type of collaborative effort.
"The landowner already has a right to negotiate a surface-use agreement whether or not he owns the mineral," Bower said. "We will continue, as the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, to work towards improving the process and the relationship between operators and landowners."
Aengst said the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is impacted by activities that might not occur in any boundary.
"Part of their (Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks) value and the importance to the public, whether Wyoming or the national public, is the wildlife and the air quality," Aengst said. "Those things don't exist in a box."
Much of the antelope, for example, winter in the Pinedale Anticline area where natural gas production is booming.
Migration corridors are threatened, as is the ambient air quality of the entire region.
"They (the parks) will be directly affected by what happens in terms of surrounding gas development," Aengst said. "That's not to say that we should stop all gas development in Sublette County, which is obviously booming. But it does mean that's a place where industry should be held to the highest possible standard because that's what Wyoming folks think."