Desert Values
The Red Desert is a land of contrasts. Its emptiness and incessant wind can overwhelm visitors at first, but as you explore and look more closely, the desert has a way of drawing you in. It may be the unexpected flash of pink bitterroot poking up through barren sand, or the sight of a herd of wild horses racing across the sagebrush. It may be sighting a pronghorn buck in your scope after hours of crawling stealthily on your belly through the sage. Whatever it is, the Red Desert has captivated hundreds of thousands of people over the years. But now this area faces threats—in the form of oil and gas development—that may change it forever.
Since the settlement of the West and long before, the Red Desert has played a special role in the lives of Americans. For thousands of years the region has been a sacred place of worship for the Shoshone and Ute tribes. Pioneers, Pony Express riders, Mormon settlers and mountain men also found, among the desert’s features, important landmarks that guided them west toward Utah, Oregon, Washington and California.
The Red Desert is a rich landscape that offers world-renowned pronghorn and elk hunting, wildlife viewing and one of the largest active sand dune complexes in North America. Animals have adapted over generations to thrive in this harsh landscape. One of the largest desert elk herds in North America makes the Red Desert their home. Each year a portion of the 50,000 pronghorn antelope and 50,000 mule deer herds migrate to the Red Desert for the winter and then into the Upper Green River Basin and Wind River Mountains during the summer. The Red Desert provides these animals with crucial wintering habitat. In the springtime, thousands of sage grouse gather for their mating dances on leks as they have for centuries.
Who Manages the Red Desert?
The majority of the acreage on the Red Desert is managed by two separate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices. The majority of the acreage in the western portion of the desert is managed by the Rock Springs field office and the majority of the acreage in the eastern portion is managed by the Rawlins field office. BLM and groups working to protect this area have further separated the Red Desert into several defining geographic regions within the northern and southern portions, such as the Jack Morrow Hills, the Great Divide Basin, and Adobe Town. Since all of these regions are located within the same desert ecosystem, they have similar defining characteristics with unique distinctiveness. These regions are labeled on the map below.
Within the entire, approximately 6 million acre, Red Desert, only 16% of the land remains in a wilderness state while 84 % has been roaded and industrialized. Some of the unspoiled lands include the Pedro Mountains, Wild Cow Creek, Jack Morrow Hills, Ferris Mountain, Prospect Mountain, Bennett Mountains, and Adobe Town. Two areas that are currently having management plans drafted include the Jack Morrow Hills and The Great Divide Country.
Jack Morrow Hills (JMH)
Within the northeastern portion of the Red Desert lies the 620,000-acre area known as the Jack Morrow Hills. Citizens have fought to protect the Red Desert since 1898 when Wyoming hunters attempted to designate much of it as a Winter Game Preserve. Since then there have been attempts to protect the Jack Morrow Hills Area as a National Park, a National Wildlife Refuge, a Wild Horse Refuge, and a North American Antelope Range. None of these efforts succeeded. Now, more than a century later, threats to this part of the Red Desert have escalated making it more crucial than ever to take action to help ensure this magnificent area is protected.
Mountain lions, coyotes, golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, and bands of wild horses inhabit this area. Seven designated Wilderness Study Areas are located within the JMH demonstrating the ecological importance of this area. Archeological evidence indicates that Native Americans first inhabited this region 12,000 years ago. These people followed migrating wildlife along what is today known as the Indian Gap Trail.
Recent explorers include mountain men like Jedediah Smith, who traversed the desert nearly 200 years ago. These adventurers may have been seeking to explore this wild, isolated country for the sake of adventure—just as today's visitors do. The Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express Trails traverse the Jack Morrow Hills section of the Red Desert, and to this day, the desert evokes images of the remarkable grit and courage of our pioneer ancestors.
The Rock Springs Bureau of Land Managment’s (BLM) Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan, released in July of 2004, gave priority to oil and gas development, which is not in keeping with the BLM’s mandate to manage for multiple use. The FEIS proposed 205 new oil and gas wells and 50 exploratory coalbed methane wells to be drilled in crucial wildlife habitat. This number is NOT a cap. It is an estimate. The BLM admits in the plan that it does not know the true scope of development since the energy reserve potential in the study area is controversial and largely unknown. However, consider the following facts.
a) BLM admits that to develop the estimated natural gas (not coalbed methane) in the study area it would require the development of 891 producing wells.
b) The Wyoming State Geological Survey estimates that to develop the potential coalbed methane, oil and gas in the study area would require the development of 543 methane wells and 322 conventional oil and gas wells.
Although the plan would allow increased energy development throughout much of the Jack Morrow Hills Area, the part that would be hardest hit by industrialization is land adjacent to Steamboat Mountain where a Native American holy site exists. The BLM's FEIS would ensure a spider web of new roads, utility lines and drilling rigs will be woven slowly over the next fifteen years, destroying the wild character of this spectacular desert.
The BLM’s Record of Decision (ROD) was released on July 20, 2006 and does allow for the 255 natural gas and coalbed methane wells proposed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement. The 255 wells is the minimum number to be drilled and therefore it is not a cap, which leaves the area vulnerable to even greater industrialization. Friends of the Red Desert is highly disappointed with the BLM’s decision that discounted over 80,000 comments calling for no mineral extraction in the Jack Morrow Hills and the lack of acknowledgement that Wyoming’s citizens want some unique and special lands left for themselves, for wildlife, for wildlife habitat, and for open space.
We remain to fight and are pushing for the Jack Morrow Hills to be designated as a National Conservation Area. This designation would keep all our activities intact, but wouldn’t allow future oil, gas, coalbed methane or large scale mining activities. You can help protect this sensitive place.
Adobe Town
Adobe Town is not inhabited by humans and truck stops, rather it is an area of high desert buttes and badlands that has long attracted attention for its mesmerizing landscapes. Adobe Town lies in the southwest corner of what is called the Great Divide Country. The Great Divide Country includes the entire south central and southeastern part of Wyoming, a total of approximately 18,000 square miles.
Carved into intricate shapes by water and wind, Adobe Town is possibly the most astonishing and remote set of badlands and geological formations in the entire state of Wyoming. Throughout the area, which is virtually untouched by human activity, wide patches of desert and rolling sand dunes stretch across the open spaces between colorful rock formations and rugged canyons. Fossils of long-extinct mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates show visitors what once inhabited this landscape. And several high priority plant species that have adapted to thrive off 5 inches of average rainfall sprout from the arid soil.
Adobe Town is universally known for its trophy antelope and also contains trophy mule deer. In addition, Wyoming's largest herd of wild horses roams here. Due to an abundance of jack rabbits and other prey, this unit is prime raptor habitat. Golden eagles, prairie falcons, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls, and ferruginous hawks all nest in these badlands. Horned toads, rattlesnakes and other small desert dwellers also abound. Like the Jack Morrow Hills, people have sought to protect Adobe Town from development in the past, including an effort to have it designated as a national park. However, when the BLM developed its wilderness recommendations, natural gas potential was given priority over public recreation and environmental quality.
The Rawlins BLM field office has proposed to open 50,000 acres of Adobe Town to full-field gas development under the "Desolation Flats" project. But the prognosis for this spectacular wilderness is not all bleak. The BLM has identified 40,000 acres of unprotected land in Adobe Town that it concedes has all of the attributes of wilderness, and the agency has promised to consider adding these lands to the existing Wilderness Study Area when it rewrites its Great Divide Resource Management Plan. While this promise may now be complicated by the Interior Department's recent position that the BLM lacks the legal authority to create new Wilderness Study Areas, there is still the possibility that these lands will be withdrawn from industrial use under the new Plan. And if this occurs, there is a clause in the Desolation Flats project that would withdraw the wilderness lands from drilling.
We are currently waiting for the Final Environmental Impact Statement to be released from the BLM. After this document is released the public has 30 days to file protests. The BLM is mandated to incorporate protests in the drafting of their final management plan, or the Record of Decision.
To learn more about adobe town visit Voice for the Wild website.