WP: Development Holds Reins in the Wild West

[kskiska]

Land-Use Decisions Largely Favor Energy Industry

Saturday, September 25, 2004; Page A01

PARACHUTE, Colo. -- The last sanctuary of the West Douglas wild horse herd is a desolate, forbidding place, which is just how the horses like it. As many as 60 skittish sorrels and bays make their home on the steeper slopes and stony ridges north of here, abandoning the valleys to growing throngs of oil and gas men looking for places to drill.

Now, even this refuge may soon be lost. The U.S. Interior Department, which has leased 93 percent of the horses' preserve to energy companies, recently unveiled plans for evicting the entire herd. Under the proposal, the animals will be rounded up using nets and tranquilizer darts and then hauled away for adoption. The reason cited: Wild horses are incompatible with the region's intensive gas production.

The removal of the horses, if accomplished, will be little felt outside the area. But the move to strip Colorado's West Douglas Herd Area of its only herd is emblematic of a larger effort underway to rewrite the rules governing millions of acres of undeveloped federal lands in the West. With few exceptions, the changes decisively favor energy development at a cost of reduced protections for some of the country's last wild spaces, a Washington Post analysis shows.

From his first days in Washington, President Bush has built an environmental record marked by extraordinary controversy, with decisions that have outraged environmentalists while drawing praise from industry trade groups and political conservatives.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48739-2004Sep24.html

[ochazuke]

1. Lots of people moved to Colorado because it's relatively unspoiled

But bush doing everything he can to ruin it certainly must enrage lots of people there, right?

Right?

[Kimber Scott]

2. Call someplace 'paradise' and kiss it goodbye.

Lots of people moving anywhere unspoiled, spoil it. This is about the horses and yes, Bush and Cheney are ruining it.

[paulk]

6. The environment is an issue here

It's one of the reasons polls are showing bush and Kerry tied in this supposedly Republican state...

It's a big part of why Ken Salazar has a 13 pt. lead on Pete Coors. People remember the Coors company's terrible environmental record - and will vote accordingly.

[ochazuke]

9. "More people, more scars upon the land" -- John Denver

At least let them be Democrats.

[Eye and Monkey]

3. evidently, even Wild Horses couldn't drag Bush away from his agenda.

Sick. Throwing a net around one of the primeval symbols of "free spirit", tranq'ing them, hauling them away to be a picturesque addition to someone's fenced pasture (if the horses are lucky, that is).

Some cowboy.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Daily outrages -- dear God, I hope we can rid ourselves...

of this greedy and evil cabal.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Front-paged by WP -- nt

[DeepModem Mom]

7. kick

[VegasWolf]

8. Horses! We don't need any stinking Horses!! There's OIL I tell you!!