Environmental groups sue over huge Converse County oil and gas project | Energy Journal

More than eight years after debate over the vast drilling initiative began and close to two years since it secured approval from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Advocates for the West filed a lawsuit on behalf of Western Watersheds Project and the Powder River Basin Resource Council that reiterated the groups’ longstanding concerns about the “Delaware-sized” project.

“This emerging trend of unchecked extraction of federal minerals poses serious risks to adjacent and downstream air, water, wildlife, public lands, and communities,” Sarah Stellberg, staff attorney at Advocates for the West, said in a written statement.

Of particular concern to the groups are the wells’ anticipated harms to local and regional air quality — including at Wyoming’s national parks — and to sage grouse, a species that is famously vulnerable to development near breeding sites. The BLM “improperly exempted” the project from certain land use restrictions imposed to protect sage grouse and nesting raptors, the groups allege.

The associated carbon emissions are another worry.

“As the nation grapples with extreme temperatures and the Biden administration seeks to transition to a clean, renewable energy economy, this massive project will exacerbate the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis both,” Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, said in a written statement.

Converse County is already one of Wyoming’s top oil and gas producers. In 2020, it led the state for the third consecutive year, according to the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.

Last year, in total, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission reported roughly 41,000 oil and gas wells across the state. About 27,000 of those were active.

In addition to its 5,000 wells, the disputed project — proposed by Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Devon Energy, EOG Resources Inc. and Northwoods Energy — secured permission to build 1,500 miles of gas pipelines and hundreds of miles of water pipelines, along with the requisite electrical and transportation infrastructure.

Ryan McConnaughey, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said the industry group is confident in the environmental considerations built into the project, including greenhouse gas analysis and sage grouse and raptor protections, despite the objections outlined in the lawsuit.

“I think it’s very interesting that they are trying to characterize this as a mad dash or, you know, rushed project ,when it took nearly seven years to complete,” he said.

Those years of consideration and planning that preceded approval, he added, should be “a poster child for carefully thought out and collaborative work that should be, frankly, the standard-bearer for federal lands projects.”

Wyoming’s top elected officials, including Gov. Mark Gordon, Sen. John Barrasso, former Sen. Mike Enzi and Rep. Liz Cheney, have previously voiced support for the added drilling, which the state hoped would create up to 8,000 jobs and generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue.

Unsure how the project would fare under President Joe Biden, they applauded the BLM’s sign-off during the final weeks of the Trump presidency.

“This decision establishes what has been my goal from the beginning — to provide actual year-round drilling opportunities,” Gordon said in a statement at the time. “It sets the framework for hundreds of jobs for Wyoming and ensures proper safeguards for the protection of our wildlife in the project area.”

Since then, the BLM has approved more than 225 permits to drill at least 377 new wells in the area, according to Wednesday’s filing. The lawsuit challenges those permits in addition to the agency’s 2020 decision.