Main Street, Wyoming; 603; Red Desert

Main Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. And the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through their study of Wyoming history values and ideas. I would say environmentally as the natural gas industries come into the area. Many of them are here not only to produce and to find natural gas but a lot of them are here because they want to be because of the wildlife because Wyoming itself has a unique way of attracting folks who just want to be here. And. One of Wyoming's least developed slides between Rawlings and Rock Springs is called

the Red Desert. Some say it stretches all the way up to South City in the north and all the way to the Colorado border in the south. Most of us have only seen it from our windows as we travel along I-80. I'm Deborah Hammond. And on Main Street Wyoming we're going to the Red Desert to learn more about man's history in this region and to take a glimpse at his future A. It's pretty hard firing you know with the Red Desert because it's so bad. You probably know that there's that people have different definitions of what the Red Desert is and some of it is the Great Basin goes way over toward Rollins. But I think a lot of the public includes the sand dunes and and steamboat mountain and then the great expanse of that that go out toward toward Rollins but it is a vast big country undeveloped. I bring

people out here from from other states and they're odd by this country and they should be. And even people that that are born and raised here get that same feeling Heidi. Well on one hand we like to tell them how awful it is that they don't need to come here it is a terrible place don't come. But pride gets in the way and it's just it's just a beautiful place. Nature is wonderful it's just it's just gorgeous. We love it. When we saw the sea. I thought I'd really miss the mountains you know everybody. When people think about. The ocean. Present place of the good. Most people think of the mountains. I've learned I don't care for him back smiles. I dislike this one just as it is kind of. Like other desert areas in Wyoming. The Red Desert receives less than 8 inches of precipitation a year but all of the rain and snow which falls on the red desert is

trapped within its boundaries. Trapped by the split in the Continental Divide which creates the Great Divide basin fossils tell the story of the inland lake which once covered the area and exposed rocks speak of its geologic past. The mineral wealth of the area is diverse from Jade to uranium and the same forces which created the landscape also captured vast mineral resources underground. Today water ponds rimmed with alkali attest to the Red Desert unique ability to retain the water which reaches it covering over two million acres the Red Desert remains on fenced and its vistas reach over 100 miles within its boundaries can be found some of Wyoming's most sought after antelope hunting areas. It's desert Al Curry wild horses and a variety of landscapes. The honeycombs in the north of the desert show exposed layers of clay 15 million years old. These wind and snow carved tails contain fossil remains of ancient crocodiles turtles and three

toed horses. Cedar canyon at the western edge of the Red Desert has multiple American Indian sites. The desert attracted migrating winter herds for grazing and the ancient hunters probably to the area to begin our story of man in the red desert. We travel to the white napkin Patric website where we met with Russ Tana archaeologist and historian with the Green River resource area of the Rock Springs BLM. In this general area just to the north here there are two very old what we call paleo Indian sites that are quite significant. First is a Goshen sider Goshen projectile points were found there. There also was camel bone found there this side is approximately 12000 years old. The other site is a. Bison trap site whereby snake Chiklis which are roughly half again bigger than modern Buffalo so they were pretty enormous animals were trapped in a sand dune area and killed by people you Indian

peoples and that's the family site which is the type site for the point a very beautiful. Large spear point. Yeah and. Those. Cultures as near as we can tell died out about a thousand years ago along with the large mammals that they were hiding in from 8000 to roughly 2000 years ago there was a long what we call our cake period which means that people had a generalized hunter gatherer lifestyle and they basically hunted pretty much every animal that you could and gathered. Plant foods seeds from Indian rice grass. Juniper berries all kinds of plant foods like that. And then in the later periods what we call the late pre-historic you had Indians possibly more like the modern Native American cultures that made Petrik of sites like we have here this is the White Mountain petroglyphs site characterized by a number of very classic. That rock art motifs like the theropods here their paws are found

on Petrobras sites all over North America. Very prominent in southwest and in the plains. They may be related to a Klein kind of situation that was pervasive over tribal boundaries maybe like a fraternal organization where they were members of the Bear Clan. That were members were shown a tribe or Sioux or crow any way you could find their paws on almost all of the sites in southwest Wyoming and all over the western United States. This site there also are various kinds of mammals. I don't know for sure what to say this is but it may be an archaic kind of representation of a buffalo. Many times we have an animal inside of another animal. It seems to indicate pregnancy or fertility. Another sign of possible fertility sign at this location is this motif that might represent a trickle. There are some other turtles other bear paws. There's a nice real nice elk over here. There are a lot of them actually

over a hundred different individual motifs at this site the site probably has three stages of rock art unit dating to 2000 years ago and with the most recent things being maybe only 50 to 100 years old because we do have horse mounted planes you know years with nice head dresses and things are very typical of the plains Indian cultures which in this area probably would have been people of the Shawnee or possibly Crow tribes in their land use plan being developed for this area the BLM wants to create a quarter mile buffer to protect the petroglyphs for misuse and vandalism. They also hope to develop other more recent historical sites to add to the story of this region. There are a number of old ranch sites. Related to the homesteading air that was after roughly 1871 the red road was completed here several ranch sites dating to the 70 1870s 1880s run called the Truxtun ranch that we're planning to do some interpretation of the great

migrations across America in the mid 1800s avoided the Arab great divide basin. To this day the region remains sparsely populated. In the reading that I've done in the work that I've done my impressions are that this country was wetter not too many years ago you can read in the journals of the pioneers coming across here and if we could walk up on top of the ridge here we would see the winner mountains and many many journal entries. In August in late August and September talk about the glistening white winter mountains in the course now we don't have that of course. There's been a lot of work done with the glaciers and they are melting exponentially. And my guess is that. The country was a little wetter so maybe it was a little more lash Pioneer's also talk about forging some streams that these days are just a little trickle and they had major problems because of the amount of water that was going down some of these streams even in late summer.

Dick Randall has served as president of the Sweetwater Wildlife Association and teaches a course called apology of the Red Desert. You first came into the red desert area and one thousand one of the changes that was just happening when I first got here was. Sheep. In fact they had no regulations as to grazing. So sheep would come in from my. Own Colorado and. Utah and run herd after another through this whole area. And they finally changed that to where there was some regulation as to the number of sheep grazing here. But that made a bit of a difference and if you talk to the experts one of them wrote that they didn't damage the area. And the other expert wrote that they ruined the area. So when you talk about experts. One of modern mans all this activity is in the red desert his ranch from the 1870s until the turn of the century. Thousands of sheep were trailed from Oregon across Idaho to be wintered in Wyoming Territory as Red Desert cattle require water every day. But she can live on snow and dried on the shrubs of the

Red Desert a sure symbol of the West she was invented in a blacksmith James Andrews. It was invented to meet the needs of the desert herds. Eventually the itinerants and their herds were forced to leave by families who decided to permanently settle in the area. We visited with third generation Red Desert rancher Joanne's and her husband Gary to hear more about the area's history and to learn about their lives today. We're right here we're on the Barry stream add to that the Red Desert. There it is it is east of us and the red as it is is too harsh a country where there's just no protection in the red desert and people dread winter grade desert were very successful at this kind of right on the line between. There are summer country in the winter country as we look as you look southward Rock Springs it's it's the winter country back up north toward the sand dunes It's our summer country

and in 1900 my grandfather left with calm Wisconsin even now can dairy cows and he just got up one morning about the horse in a train station and this is the story and can't even valet took the place out of sagebrush had to work for the arrogation company to help make payment. I met Gary and he liked the ranch and he always says the married service rich ranchers but he got up and we started with sheep and that 67 we changed to cattle. We spend more time with the cattle now that used to be we had the sheep herders with the sheep and they was there every day will now we drive to your gate. They still ride. We'll be right Bobbie 300 days a year if I leave home and go every trough on every pipeline and in this allotment in the highway gas law I drive one hundred fifty two miles.

Labor and predator problems brought about their transition from sheep to cattle. But there's a cut next who depend on public range land have made other changes in the management of their ranch over the years we have more pressure on them like the BLM regulatory agency and actually more pressure from the public. It seems like we get up every day trying to defend our way of life and we have we have to spend more time at meeting. We can't stay at home and take care of the animals like we'd like to do five five years ago all I do every county every gaffe on earth now I don't hardly recognize the Bulls simply because I have I have hired younger people to ride and I go to public lands meetings and and and reclamation before meetings and and you just you just don't get to spend a dime of your life duckies get one. Today ranching may be one of man's all those economic activities in the area. But it's the region's expansive petroleum deposits that have put the red desert on the national map.

John Judas with The Rock Springs BLM office told us about the beginnings oil and gas exploration began in the early 1940s. Near bear oil. Wyoming. And consequently activities moved further west to an area around deserts springs and that was activities occurred in the 1950s. Exploration and production peaked in the 1960s and 70s and has dropped off since that about 90 percent of the federal land in the area is leased for oil and gas production. Cathy Springer with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming spoke with us. About the significance of the region nationwide the Red Desert area specifically it's otherwise known as the greater Green River Basin and there's approximately 10 trillion cubic feet of proved reserves in this area which basically said it's of utmost importance to the

state of Wyoming this area represents about 60 percent of all the product that's left in the United States. So it's pretty substantial. We met with Cathy and Tim Hopkins operation manager for Union Pacific resources and one of you received numerous natural gas rights just a few miles west of Watts. Yeah there has been a market change in the past 20 years and a lot of it has been driven as much by economics as by environmental sensitivity. 15 years ago gas prices were projected to be $10 an M C F by now this summer they're lowest they've been in almost recordable time at around a dollar names. And yet we're still finding ways through creativity to make that work. And that's quite a compliment to an industry I think. So it shows that we are innovative along those same lines with efficiency that means everything

we do needs to get a little bit more compact a little bit more streamlined. And as a result of that we've not only lowered costs but lowered some of our impacts. This is a very unique site in southwest Wyoming. It's a very advanced technologically in a number of ways. The most significant aspect is we have drilled four wells from a single location so we've developed one square mile of oil and gas resources from one surface location. It's a good technical concept and it's a good environmental concept. It's being tested at this point in time. Because when we have to directly drill that increase the costs of drilling the well. But we get some offsets where we don't have to build a redundant surface facilities redundant roads are redundant pipelines. At this point it's not quite making good economic sense. But as an industry we feel with some

more technical advances it's probably on the near-term horizon of being practical in the year 1994. The oil and gas industry represented roughly half a billion dollars to the to the budget of the state. Certainly as as we're finding new reserves and certainly as we continue to drill hopefully that will maintain the state of Wyoming certainly because crude production is on the decline. Hopefully though even though gas prices are currently at a loss. The hope is that those gas prices will maintain. And ultimately the production will maintain itself and will increase with the years to come. We wanted to know more about the people who are working in the industry standard statistics are that an active drilling rig will employ approximately 25 people when it takes into account the other services

that have to be provided to the rig so to drill the well about 25 people for two weeks to a month setter is uniquely situated. It's about 70 miles from Rock Springs and about 20 miles from Rollins our company the majority of our operations have been historically closer to Rock Springs. So most of our people commute out here on a daily basis. It's a long commute in the winter and there are a number of people are starting to move into Rawlins. And with the expanded activity in this area I would think the rounds would definitely see somebody relation increase with modern technology however daily visits may become a thing of the past. Also on this location today you've seen some examples of where we're utilizing solar energy and radio transmissions from this site so that we don't have to visit this site every single day so that we can monitor it from a remote location. And those are just some of the few examples. Not far as history brought us on the red desert at the turn of the century sheepherders had

their bands of sheep at night in order to avoid marauding gunmen who were determined to drive them from the rained Red Desert continues to be the setting for passionate debates. Today's arguments center on man's use of the land and the referee for the most part is the Bureau of Land Management. The biggest change that I have seen is that we've started to work as has teams wildlife biologists a range conservation this year recreation as wilderness specialist petroleum engineers. All these people sit down together to be able to do the best job possible to develop those resources recreation is the largest. There's a lot of hunting camping backpacking. Photography. There's also six wilderness study areas within the Red Desert. They have a lot of human activity and they're also even a defined boundaries of the Red Desert to become a bone of contention among the individuals and groups

concerned about the region's future. And so we asked Beth what effect the BLM is management of the area whether or not it's in the red lines or not at all. Are the management of the areas based on the resources that lie on the ground whether they're located within the Red Desert is irrelevant of how we manage it. One of the areas most enjoyed by recreation is the Packer sand dunes. I've flown this several times photographed him from the air. And I followed the dunes. They allowed their going east. And then disappear and they'll reappear. And we found them clear into Nebraska. That's how long they are. And we dug ice shells out of the dunes. That is pretty unique there's maybe another place or two in the whole United States. That has ice sails buried in sand dunes where ice south. Reddish comes from that the wind in here is quite a bit and the temperature gets pretty low and if we have a really nice snow every winter. The snow bends over and settles on the least side of the dunes. And it can get dressed 10 20 feet deep.

Then as spring starts coming in the sand thaws out and the sand blows over the top of the snow drifts and covers it up. And then along about June you start to have an ice sail buried in there. And I've taken out many tourists out here who will dig those things out. And it's very difficult to find and tell I finally learned I have a rod about six feet long now with a handle on it. You go along poking where they should be in the sand there's no rock and if you hit something solid that's and I sail to dig it out and it feeds the dune ponds in the summer and the. Rather foul coming on nest around those ponds. It's really unique. The dune buggy thing started some years back and before then just behind us we have a proposed road in this area. And. It's so badly needed now years ago. There's doing ponds over there and I used to see elk come down and drink out of the dune ponds and even calf down in that area.

Now with the dune buggies they're not here anymore they're back up on steamboat mountain or someplace else so that dune buggies made a huge difference not only and. In the wildlife down here but also in the vegetation. Because they ran over most everything. Many people are intimidated by a country like this but our wildlife species do need a lot of land to exist in and people should be concerned about the vegetation we have here because that's where it starts. If we don't have the right kinds of habitats the right kinds of vegetation we're not going to have these animal species here they exist on these plants right up from the very small creatures up to the large in the predators they depend on this vegetation. The Red Desert is the winter range for the sublet antelope herd which migrate all the way from Jackson the most competitive area for antelope licenses in the state of Wyoming. It carries an area 57 of the Red Desert because of its reputation for producing trophy backs

controversy and surrounded management of the wild bad numbers in recent years. But Tom Christiansen of the Wyoming Game and Fish predicts that the optimum number of antelope in the area will be about 40000 with an annual harvest of 7000. Hunting is big business in the red desert. But then that's not nearly what is new is the idea that man can manage wildlife and habitat ranchers can utilize range land as a renewable resource but mineral production can work side by side with environmental concerns. In that recreation life can limit their activities to designated areas. There's a lot more emphasis being put on recreation. There are the first generation of baby boomers are becoming of age for retirement and they are slightly more active than say my parents were and they are going to demand more of the public lands in the way of recreation. So I see a steering toward more

involvement in that aspect. I think it should be mandatory in our schools right from kindergarten on up that we talk about land ethics something that all the Leopold called the land ethic is something that I think is sorely lacking in the American public as a whole and this is my arranged right here and this is your ranch right here and this is our heritage this is something that we should be proud of and we should work towards we should struggle if we need to to preserve this and I hope the people of this state and in this country will. We tried to be a little more cognizant of people using that lesson. And we realize now we're not the only ones that use that publicly and there are certain concessions that we have to make that 10 years ago or 15 years ago I think we get harassed but we we watch the wilderness area and we know that

we have to just make compromises that we never used. I've seen another changes we've been able to sit down with the companies and explain to them the issues that we have say with wildlife and habitat or wilderness study areas there's wilderness study areas out in this area that were recommended for wilderness and the companies so you know guardian and and and work with us to help alleviate some of the issues or problems that we might have in development of those areas. Basically two sets of people that work in the oil industry. They're the producing companies like mine and so once the wells drilled it will be around for 20 or 40 years. That so that provides a relatively stable base climate. During the drilling and completion phase of a construction phase that's another segment of the industry that gets more impacted by swings in activity due to price or whatever causes. As a member of the board of directors of the United Way's we water accounting that's one of the things we

are concerned with the swings in oil and gas activity because the burdens that that can place on a community and a number of people come here because they want to work here and they like the outdoors and they'll generally try to stay and make it through the slow time. But the swings are difficult on those people for. No telling what's going to happen out here politics has got so darn much to do with it. And it shouldn't help many Wyoming people are working to maintain the special qualities of the Red Desert preparing for man's future here. It's well worth a visit to come and see what the Red Desert looks like. I'm Deborah Hammond. Thanks for joining us from Maine State Wyoming. Why mainstreet Wyoming is made

possible by Kennicott energy company. Proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production and the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history values and ideas.