BY JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Friday, Sept. 28, 2001
Oil exploration does not mix with deer and elk hunting, according to Utah environmentalists who claim the Wasatch-Cache National Forest has broken its own rules in a rush to smooth the way for a Houston mining company.
The Utah Environmental Congress, a consortium of green groups, says the forest's Evanston District Director Stephen Ryberg ignored concerns the consortium raised about the underground mineral detection being done by Grant Geophysical.
Even though the deer- and elk-hunting seasons are about to begin, Ryberg is allowing the company to drill 3.5-inch holes every 440 feet along 32 miles of the north slope of the Uintas.
Not only may the helicopter drilling across the Blacks Fork River and the west fork of the Smith Fork River drainages potentially disrupt the hunts, it also may harm wetlands, streambeds and other habitat important to the threatened Canadian lynx and other sensitive species, environmentalists say.
"This is yet another example of how the Forest Service kowtows to private extractive industries at the expense of the public that owns these lands," said UEC Director Denise Boggs.
Ryberg insisted his agency has reviewed the potential impacts and required the company to take some precautionary measures: No off-highway vehicles can be used, helicopters will position the drills and the company cannot work at the site on the popular weekend hunting days.
Measures such as these will enable the company to get the work done before winter and spring, when wildlife would be especially sensitive to habitat disturbances, Ryberg noted.
"We don't think it will be substantially affected," he said.
Hunters are being notified that the helicopters will be in the area midweek and the wild-land experience may be disturbed. They also are being alerted about the seismic work at the Bear River Ranger station.
Danny Potts of the Salt Lake County Fish and Game Association, an outdoors club, expects that many hunters will be blaming the exploration crews for their bad luck hunting.
"If they are doing that during the week, of course it's going to affect hunters," he said. "How could it not?"
UEC said forest service officials were obligated to allow greater public scrutiny of the project before approving it. Boggs also called the forest service's analysis of the potential environmental problems "skewed and biased."
"It's blatantly and obviously wrong," she said.
Officials of the Houston company had gone home for the day and were not available to comment.
