I added my name to the list. I've been planning a trip out to the White River NF for elk hunting for the coming fall. Sounds like I better get out there sooner than later. If I wanted to hunt next to gas wells, I'd stay at home!

At least they're looking to do it on BLM land and not national forest which I was planning on hunting, but if mule deer and elk drop 30%, it'll likely push more people into the areas I was hoping to go.

This being my back yard I have a little extra insight into the matter. It really is a bit of a double edged sword. While the drill rigs do have SOME effect on the wildlife, it is pretty much nominal. I know of several people who hunt private land with drill rigs on it and have seen great success, my brother being one of them. The roads, rigs, and lights have more effect on the landscape than they do the wildlife. The flip side of all of this is that the energy fields of oil, gas, and coal provide an amazing economical boost to rural areas in western Colorado during terrible financial times. A coal mine in western CO recently had a large layoff and it's devastating. Roughly 400 family men went from a hard to find good paying job with benefits to join the crowds of people looking for work. I think the energy companies need to be highly responsible in their planning of roads and drill sites etc. But until there is another option for the the thousands of families that draw their living from the energy fields, I say, bring em on!

I agree with rickyno5. It's a hard to sell habitat conservation when it's a struggle just to provide for your family. To be honest I was a little hopefull our President 4 years ago to get us out from under our addicition/relience on foriegn oil. But not so. What's more frustrating is that the technology to really become energy independent is out there and can be very successful, hydrogen fuel cell, yet our do nothing congress and oil lobbyists seem to have squashed that. A solution to our energy needs has to come from the grassroots level.

Well I signed but I have to agree with rickyno5, a job to support a family is very important and if I had to name the one thing that makes it hard for me to hunt the White River NF and the Flattops it's the outfitters guiding rich paying clients not the drill rigs giving jobs to locals.

Every time I read about Field and Stream writers flying here or there to write stories about hunting and fishing realize where all that Jet A comes from, rigs out by Meeker.

Agreed, Backcountry. How about those other bogus arguments: "Well, how do you heat your home?" and "I don't see you taking a horse and buggy to work?" As if that gives the extraction industry the green light to drill anywhere they choose and automatically forfeits our right to have a say in the matter. Sorry folks, it doesn't work like that. Natural gas and oil consumption isn't going anywhere and that's a fact. But that doesn't mean our country should continue to be ball and chained to destructive fossil fuels. We need to level the playing field, invest in renewable, cleaner energy and start detaching ourselves from the big 3 fossil fuels' teet. They've been leading the ship for too damn long and we've been paying the price.

Well said Rickyno5

You guys are still all talking about fossil fuels. If we want to get serious about moving away from that and have a endless supply of clean enery we really need to look at and begin investing in bio-fuels and especially hydrogen fuel cell. The technogly is there to potential eleminate large power grids. No more outages, no more hydro-electric plants, rivers will run free, the air will be far cleaner. I mean everything could run on a fuel cell, cars, trucks, large equipment, semi's, even our own houses could be fueld by hydrogen. And the only "pollutant" would be water. I'm not saying we will ever get completely away from fossil fuels. And this could really all happen in the next 10-15 years. Just take the chains of the industry and let the free market run with it.

Ricky,

So your point is that you'd like to see toxic pollution insourced back to the states? So much for progress...

I'll break this down for you with the help of the WSJ: "Wind and solar need the help because the barriers for new technologies in the energy industry are tougher than those in any other industry in this country. Fossil fuels, with the help of their own government subsidies over the years, are thoroughly entrenched, with trillions of dollars' worth of infrastructure in place."

The renewable energy industry don't even get a fifth of the subsidies that the fossil fuel industry receives. That number is well over $70 billion/year. Again, all I'm saying is level the playing field. Doing so will allow the technology to further develop and the costs to become more competitive, faster. It's not enough that the U.S. is already set to overtake Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer in the world? We have to develop some of our last remaining wilderness areas because of some romanticized view of fossil fuel workers that you have? I definitely appreciate the role that mining jobs and its heritage have had on this country just as much as the next guy, but it's 2013 and our current system is not sustainable.

"You could almost say that these kinds of people are the ones paying the taxes that support the solar and wind energy fields." Your referring to the 2.4 million workers with a fossil fuel job? Sure. The 2.7 million workers in clean energy are paying for it as well.

Not quite, $48 billion was privately invested in clean tech in 2011.

My user name proves that I'm Bob Marshall?

Dcast, I'll say it again. This paranoia and obsession with Bob Marshall should seriously be looked into by a therapist. I'm not kidding.

I've been questioned about my user name on 3 different occasions by people that usually disagree with me. Why? I'm not sure. I guess with the absence of logic people tend to resort to such immature stupidity. "Real Good Man" is a Tim McGraw song. You would have found that out by doing a routine Google Search, but instead you chose to make yourself look like a fool.

An extreme environmentalist? Wrong again. Just a regular guy that likes to hunt and fish, values our lands and resources and has a passion for conservation. Oh, and I can think for myself and put principles over politics. Something you're clearly incapable of. I never have nor do I now consider myself an environmentalist. But I suppose anyone with common sense and a basic understanding of the natural world is an environmentalist to you.

Unfortunately, I do not have any ties to the solar industry, which is a shame because I'd love to have some panels up.

The drilling industry runs amok in CO, buying republican and even some democratic legislators to push rules that throw the gates open to big gas/oil at the cost of the environment. Mesa county is a prime example. The industry pays almost nothing to industrialize public wildlands, reap massive profits, and disregard reclamation and safety standards that are minimal at best, again due to the industry controlling the state rulemaking process. The corrupt state energy agency charged with overseeing laws and public interest in drilling is about to be prosecuted, see this week's Denver Post online. Safety and environmental compliance inspections are years behind schedule, environmental "accidents" that pollute groundwater and air are barely investigated. Drillers avoid reclaiming by going to court for years while pollution leaches into surface streams and groundwater, kills fish, and toxifies drinking wells. Fracking (google it if you don't already know)accelerates the damage, while consuming water that is "more valuable than gold" in the arid, droughty western slope of CO. Roads, well pads, pipelines, compressors will remain in place on the landscape for decades to come.

The Roan Plateau has been leased for drilling, illegally per district court, placing at risk some of the finest wildlands in western CO. Geologists have written that 80% of the gas on the Roan can be extracted by directional drilling without disturbing the surface of the plateau, where endangered trout breed amidst large, wild herds of elk and deer. The industry scoffs at that, despite the concensus opinions of city and county governments adjacent to the Roan who want it left undeveloped. The industry does only as much environmental compliance as they are forced to do by legislation and enforcement, which is a dysfunctional and ineffective process.

I have lived in Colorado for 50 years, and no industrial activity has come close to drilling in producing environmental damage and destruction in this spectacular, fragile state. I stopped hunting in "the deer factory" of Piceance basin, just north of the Roan, when rig density hit 4/square mile. It is an industrial wasteland now, game and hunters have moved out. The squealers ranting that "oil and gas feed my family" came from Texas and elsewhere to drill, baby, drill, and will be gone when the play moves to North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and the other next places. They are destroying what were a magnificent public lands, paying a pittance for that privilege, they only care about high income jobs and record profits. Their loyalty is to their name brand, not to the USA, Colorado, or the White River National Forest (home of the world's largest elk herd). People who live on this land and care for it deeply will tell you the truth about the real cost of drilling in Colorado's wild places, but can't afford expensive ad campaigns. The commercials bought by the industry are flagrant propaganda, designed to sway legislators and uninformed voters. Don't be fooled! Oil and gas development seriously threatens hunting and fishing in Colorado and elsewhere.

@RGM -- Have pity on Dcast. He doesn't merely "look like" a fool... he's an adult forever doomed to ride the short bus.