BLM Sells Land to Water Guzzlers During Drought
By Debbie Coffey Director of Wild Horse Affairs at Wild Horse Freedom Federation Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved.
From 2002-2012 (ten years) the BLM Ely District in Nevada leased 3,952,231 acres for oil & gas exploration and development. Think about it. Almost 4 million acres in only one BLM District in Nevada. This isn’t counting the acres leased in other BLM districts in Nevada, or in other states.
Fracking requires enormous quantities of water. Estimates put water usage at between 3 and 5 million gallons per fracking of a single well, and each well can be fracked several times.
A recent Elko Daily Free Press article titled “Drought causes BLM to reduce grazing, other targeted actions,” stated that “In Nevada, about 60 percent of the state has been in severe or extreme drought since January.” The article continued with “‘Since last fall and winter, we have been working with grazers across the West in anticipation of tough conditions related to drought,’ said Neil Kornze, BLM principal deputy director…’‘As drought conditions continue, wild horses, livestock, and wildlife that rely on rangeland forage and water will face extremely challenging conditions that may leave them in very poor condition. We are taking action to address these situations as quickly and as effectively as we can, but our options are increasingly limited by conditions on the land,’ he added.”
On June 28, 2013, the BLM Ely District office issued a Preliminary Environmental Assessment for their upcoming December 2013 Oil and Gas Lease Sale, which is offering 399,873 acres of public lands in their district. Then, only a few days later, around July 1 or 2, the Ely district started hauling water out to the Seaman Herd Area for wild horses there, because the seeps were low and there wasn’t enough water for the horses. Rosemary Thomas, the Ely District Manager, said that although the stallions and dry mares seemed to be doing okay, the wet mares and foals weren’t doing well. Now, knowing this, and knowing that the BLM has been aware of drought conditions since last January, let’s look at a rough map of a small area of the land that was put up for an oil & gas lease/sale on June 28, within and around the Seaman Herd Area:.....
story continues with maps. http://rtfitchauthor.com/2013/07/16/blm-sells-land-to-water-guzzlers-during-drought/
= new reply since forum marked as read
