Compiled by WEN Staff

Last Tuesday, the BLM’s oil and gas lease sale generated $1.6 million for leasing rights and referrals on about 61,000 acres on 77 parcels in the state. However, that did not include the 1,700-acre parcel near Little Mountain in southwest Wyoming, which was pulled from the lease sale.

The parcel was deferred until state and federal managers review and determine a strategy for development in the Little Mountain ecosystem, the BLM’s Julie Weaver said Friday. She added that officials will work with Wyoming Game and Fish Department managers to develop management strategies on the mountain, a popular area for hunting, fishing and recreation about 40 miles south of Rock Springs near Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Little Mountain became a flash point for the energy debate back in 2007 when Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Co. announced plans to conduct a two-well exploratory drilling project near the mountain. Many local residents joined in a loose coalition with conservationists, hunters and others to voice opposition to the project, fearing  it would lead to full-scale development on the scenic mountain.

Last week’s lease sale drew several protects from an assortment of conservation groups and individuals, including the Greater Little Mountain Coalition. The protests marked the third time in less than a year the coalition has protested leases in Sweetwater County.

Weaver said the deferral doesn’t impact current valid leases on
Little Mountain and that the agency will “still address the
protest concerns when we answer the protests … probably later
this year.” She said the agency is still working on its
response to protests filed with the agency last year.

“So we’re about a year behind, but once we get that resolved,
then we will do August and then do each one of them in the
order that they came in,” Weaver said.

Weaver told Jeff Gearino of the Casper Star Tribune that the
agency will consider deferring parcels on Little Mountain in
future lease sales on a case-by-case basis until the management
strategy is adopted. “We’ll have to look at each parcel to
determine if it’s going to be affected,” Weaver said.

The Little Mountain area is prized among locals for its elk,
antelope and mule deer hunting. The mountain contains prime
habitat for wildlife, and streams and rivers that support many
fish species, including sensitive Colorado River cutthroat
trout populations.

In the last two decades, the Little Mountain area has been the
beneficiary of more than $2 million in riparian habitat
restoration projects funded by various private groups, state
and federal agencies. Game and Fish has also spent more than
$350,000 on habitat improvement projects in the area.

Officials with Devon believe that with proper planning and the
necessary resources, drilling on leases on Little Mountain can
be carried out in an environmentally sensitive manner and
without significant harm to wildlife.

They note the area’s geology would make any commercial
development by Devon a “unique” play that would not require
nearly as many wells and well pads as the more intense
development to the north in the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline
fields.