Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Study: Oil and gas drilling consuming millions of acres
Drilling for oil and gas, which has increased substantially in many
parts of the country over the past decade, has impacted millions of
acres of agricultural and range land, according to researchers. A study published today in the journal Science
found that between 2000 and 2012, about 7 million acres – the rough
equivalent of three Yellowstone National Parks – was given over to well
pads and related roads. About half of the acreage was rangeland, and
roughly another 40 percent was cropland and 10 percent forestland. A
very small amount was wetland. The researchers calculated that crop production lost due to drilling
amounted to 130 million bushels of wheat, about 6 percent of the wheat
produced in 2013 in the region under study. In addition, land clearance for drilling over that period destroyed
about 7 million animal unit months (an animal unit month is the forage
required for one animal for one month.) The range land taken out of
production over that decade is nearly equivalent to all range land
managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management, according to the
study...more
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