Mixing Oil & Wetlands

Since I drive a car and heat my home, it would be hypocritical of me to renounce oil production in the U.S. or elsewhere across the globe. Nevertheless, the oil industry has a tendency to minimize its potential impact on wetlands, the most productive ecosystems on our planet.

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, in extreme southwest Louisiana, is the largest wetland preserve along the Gulf Coast, renowned for its large flocks of wintering waterfowl, its wide variety of wading birds and its resident population of American alligators and wetland mammals. Yet, oil production continues on this preserve despite a significant spill during the winter of 2002-2003 and the devastation of Hurricane Rita, in September, 2005, which spread more than 1400 barrels of toxic chemicals across the refuge. More recently, shortcuts in the startup of BP's Deepwater Horizon inundated coastal marshlands with crude oil, the worst man-made disaster in the history of the Gulf of Mexico. Now, despite concerns for potential damage to wetlands and groundwater across the unique sandhills ecosystem of western Nebraska, conservative politicians and their oil company supporters are attempting to push through the Keystone Pipeline Project before appropriate environmental studies are complete. And, of course, conservationists have been battling proposals to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for decades.

While we cannot replace fossil fuels with "green" sources of energy overnight, it is equally short-sighted for the oil industry to minimize its impact on fragile and vital ecosystems across our planet. Oil and wetlands will not mix and we destroy those crucibles of life at our own peril.

Powder River Basin

On my recent journey through Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, I was amazed at the number of coal trains that were streaming eastward; each more than a mile long, the trains were spaced by no more than a few miles. Originating at surface mines in the vicinity of Gillette, Wyoming, this caravan delivers a million tons of coal per day to power plants across the central and eastern U.S.

The Powder River Basin is defined by both its geography and its geology. Covering most of northeast Wyoming and part of southeast Montana, the basin stretches between the Bighorn Mountains of north-central Wyoming and the Black Hills of western South Dakota. Its southern border is the topographic divide between the North Platte watershed, to the south, and the watersheds of the Powder and Cheyenne Rivers to the north; more northern parts of the basin are also drained by the Tongue and Little Missouri Rivers. Geologically, the Powder River Basin is a broad bowl of Precambrian basement rock that gradually filled with sediments from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras; Cretaceous sandstones and shales, deposited by an inland seaway, form the thickest layer of sediments and lie just beneath Paleocene coal, the remnant of vast swamps and peat bogs that covered this region 60 million years ago. Compressed by younger Tertiary sediments, the plant debris turned to coal, since brought near the surface by the Miocene Uplift and subsequent erosion.

Powder River Basin coal, desired for its low sulfur and ash content, provides 40% of the coal used in the United States. Unfortunately (for coal advocates), much of this coal, buried under thick layers of Tertiary rock, is not economically accessible; nevertheless, seams near the surface should last for another 20 years or so and mining leases are still being granted by the U.S. government. While most Americans remain dependent on coal for their electric power, environmentalists continue to push for cleaner, renewable sources of energy; the Powder River Basin is, after all, the leading source of carbon-bearing fuel in our country.