Hunters vs. Drillers in Colorado
By Jonathan Weber , 8-10-08
The Denver Post today has a piece by Mark Jaffe on what's become perhaps the most important story in the New West: the fundamental conflict between the booming resource economy and the New Western amenity economy. With Colorado poised to implement new rules on energy development - and the BLM about to auction leases on the Roan Plateau over the objections of almost all state leaders - the angst over oil and gas drilling especially is about to get worse. Jaffe quotes a Rifle-based outfitter whose hunting business has been decimated by drilling, and says the number of wells in Colorado will increase more than six-fold over the next few decades. Given all the belated global concerns about energy security and gas prices, you definitely get the sense that hunters and wilderness advocates are facing a long uphill battle. (Photo by Zach Ornitz, special to the Denver Post.)
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Comments
The "hunter" here is an outfitter, operating on public ground for 1,500 a client hunter. The outfitters grossed $22 million a year, which a store guy in Rifle (I been there) calls part of the hunting-season "bump."
But there's something important Jaffe skates around:
"In 2005, oil and gas generated $17 billion in revenues, while travel and recreation brought in $8.5 billion, according to a study by the Colorado Energy Research Institute.
"Travel and recreation, however, accounted for 160,000 jobs, more than double the number from the oil and gas sector."
Do the math. Twice the number of jobs, half the gross. That means the "tourism" jobs pay a whacking one FOURTH of what the oil patch jobs do.
Now, which job would you rather have? Actually, I'd rather have both available.
For decades, there has been a Grand Alliance between the ranchers and the energy boys, against the common foe of greenie weenies and librals. (Never mind that ranchers and oilmen alike feed heartedly at the federal subsidy trough.)
That alliance is coming apart at the seams, as ranchers get run over by the energy juggernaut -- especially where coal-bed methane is concerned. The energy boys want nothing to do with the salt-laden waters pumped out to release the methane in the coal beds beneath the Powder River country. They're externalizing the damage and the costs to their ol' buddies, who've seen pastures ruined. More and more ranchers are realizing that their erstwhile friends and allies are really hit 'n run pirates intent on maximizing profits, minimizing expenses and to heck with long-range consequences on wildlife, the land and the ag economy (energy concern about the environment is 90 percent PR blather).