Tell BLM To Withdraw Wild Horse Habitat From Gas/Oil Lease Auction
Comments Due by Tuesday, February 10, 2014
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Nevada’s Elko District is asking for public comments on its draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for 73 parcels that have been nominated for a gas and oil lease auction. Originally, the BLM identified a 214 parcels, but eliminated 141 in order to protect sage grouse, archeological and Native American sites. More than half of the remaining parcels overlap with three important wild horses Herd Management Areas (HMAs).
The BLM acknowledges that if these parcels in the HMAs are used for gas and oil exploration or production that the “[i]ncreased human and motorized activity could disrupt and displace wild horses.” In addition, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) used to extract oil and natural gas consumes large volumes of water. In these times of drought, when the BLM is talking about the need to remove even more horses from the range due to drought conditions, HMAs must be protected from such giant consumers of scarce water resources.
Please take action below to demand that the BLM revise the Draft EA to withdraw parcels within the HMAs.