Dan Rather THE PRICE of crude oil hovers around $45 a barrel. The situation in and around the oil-rich Persian Gulf seems to become less stable with each passing week. In Russia, there is uncertainty over the future of Yukos, that nation's largest oil exporter. This news, taken together with various estimates projecting that world oil-production capacity will begin an inevitable decline around the year 2040, have led to predictable and understandable calls for exploration of alternate energy sources. Energy independence for the U.S. has become a rallying cry, with implications in the economic, international-relations and environmental realms.
We usually hear about the far edges of the energy-independence debate, about how "liberals" favour exploration of solar and wind power and how "conservatives" want to drill for oil in the Alaskan wilderness. Right now, though, there's a battle taking shape in the state of Wyoming that many of us have yet to hear about. It is a battle over an alternate, home-grown energy source, and the sides in this fight defy easy classification by traditional labels.
Like propane, methane gas is widely considered a cleaner-burning alternative to oil or coal -- for heating and for generating electricity. In Wyoming's Powder River basin, between the towns of Gillette and Sheridan, a new boom is under way to extract methane trapped in that area's large underground coal beds. And this boom is pitting energy companies against the ranchers who have for so long defined Wyoming's Western image and way of life.
Key to understanding how the gas companies and the cowboys have come into conflict are long-standing laws that make land owned by ranchers "split estates": Ranchers own the surface of the land, but someone else -- usually the federal government -- owns the mineral rights under the surface. In practice, this means there is very little that ranchers can do to stop companies that have leased these mineral rights from drilling on their ranches to extract what lies underground.
ENVIRONMENTALIST
If there is such a thing as a "typical" Wyoming rancher, he is not a self-described environmentalist, and certainly not a liberal. In the last presidential election, for example, Wyoming went 68 per cent for George Bush, as compared with just 28 per cent for Al Gore. Your average rancher might, however, describe himself as a "conservationist," as in someone who considers himself respectful of the land and how it is used.
Now, increasing numbers of ranchers in the Powder River Valley are voicing concerns and anger that drilling for coal-bed methane on their land is endangering these principles. They point to the infrastructure that is required to support the wells -- new roads, new power lines, noisy equipment -- and say that it is ruining the landscape. And in this land where "Whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting over," they cite the favoured method for methane extraction, which involves pumping huge amounts of water from coal seams, and say that it is wasting water, causing erosion and ruining their vegetation.
The gas companies, meantime, insist that the law is on their side, and that they are working to make the United States more energy-independent. It is the sort of story that we will probably be hearing more of in the years to come, as energy and how to get it becomes an ever more pressing concern. And it is the sort of story that goes to show, despite the labels and easy story lines that politicians and the media tend to toss around, that very little is simple or cut-and-dried when it comes to land, the environment and finite resources.
Dan Rather is a television broadcaster
