Culture Clash- Tourism Vs. Oil & Gas in Moab
As a benefit for the San Juan Mountains Association, we had organized a canoe trip on the Green River near Moab to paddle 60 miles from Geyser Springs to Mineral Bottom. Colorado’s Centennial Canoe Outfitters claims this is “part of the longest stretch of quiet wilderness water in the western United States.” We had plans to launch on June 7th. What we hadn’t planned on was the May 21st oil spill in Salt Wash that dumped 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of oil mixed with water per hour into the river from a 45-year-old well.
Welcome to the 21st century West where energy extraction in remote places is colliding head-on with outdoor recreation in those same locales. Moab, Utah, famous for bumper stickers that read “New York, Paris, Moab” has been discovered by hordes of American, European and Asian tourists. It has also been discovered, or rather re-discovered, by oil and gas companies using fracking technology to drill deep wells.
The June 4-10 edition of the Moab Sun News proudly headlined “Tourism stats jumped in 2013.” Statistics show a geometric upward trend with 270,000 visitors to Arches National Park in 1979 and a million visitors in 2013 for a fourth consecutive year. In 2011 Headwaters Economics, in a report supported by Grand County, stated, “A significant reason for the county’s economic success stems from the diversity found today within its tourism and recreation economy. Finding ways to sustain and develop tourism and recreation that appeals to a wide mixture of visitors and residents is paramount to long-term wellbeing and economic resilience.”
Indeed, Moab has become a mountain bike mecca, a home for hikers, a departure point for dozens of daily raft trips on the Colorado River, and a launching site for serious white water fanatics seeking to test their quick reflexes in Cataract Canyon. On a summer evening tourists walk shoulder to shoulder on Main Street and vendors hawk everything from t-shirts to water bottles and even miniature sandstone sculptures of Delicate Arch.
“Moab went fishing for tourism and caught a shark,” laments Jim Stiles publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr which is now on-line. He moved out. As well, the old local families who felt comfortable with jeans, work boots and yellowcake dust in their hair have looked askance at the legions of lycra-clad cyclists who ride the same trails surplus World War II jeeps pioneered in the uranium boom of the 1950s. Those families have not wanted jobs in the tourist sector. Now instead of Subarus and SUVs with bike racks, new vehicles in town are diesel pickup trucks with Oklahoma and Texas license plates and arc welders in the back.
“Just like everybody else in America, Moab is polarized. We need oil and gas but why here? And then when the spill occurred, for conservationists it was horrible. A wake-up call. Within a day and a half an oil sheen hit Lake Powell,” says Jesse Marshall who owns Coyote Shuttle. “Every time you turn around there’s a new well going in. It’s amazing, truly amazing.”
A recent town meeting in Moab brought dozens of interested and vocal citizens to comment on the new oil and gas boom. Not all comments remained civil. Letters to the Bureau of Land Management ran strongly against increased oil and gas development. As Moab’s tourism industry has mushroomed in the last two decades so have the businesses supporting tourists. Those business owners do not want wellheads adjacent to trailheads. Fears grow about irreconcilable differences between a booming year-around tourist economy and oil and gas exploration utilizing the same good weather and easy road access.
A tiny oil boom occurred near Moab in the early 1900s. Wildcatters returned in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Then Moab placed its bets on the winning card of tourism. Now the oil companies are back leasing motels for their workers. As Marshall explains, “This boom is bigger than ever because of the new drilling technology. There’s so much oil and gas here,” but he cautions, “In Moab the biggest industry is tourism. To have this beautiful country changed by stinky air and polluted water for the sake of a few hundred jobs–it’s just not right.”
Workers will drill new wells. The old well that blew out on May 21st was contained by May 22, then heavy rains flooded the site and more produced water and oil spilled into the Green River. The BLM is in the process of reviewing leasing areas in a Moab Master Leasing Plan. Both old and new wells need to be taken into account and safety procedures mandated.
“The Green River’s Labyrinth Canyon is world-renowned for its scenic beauty and its outstanding river recreation opportunities for visitors and local families and businesses alike,” said Liz Thomas, attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) in the Moab Sun News. She’s right. We were there to canoe Labyrinth and we hiked into Trin Alcove, lazily drifted around the Bowknot Bend, and camped in Horseshoe Canyon on Barrier Creek. We also saw the remains of a previous energy boom.
Because of high water and the Green running at 20,000 CFS, we waded through the willows and tamarisk to camp near an abandoned uranium mine. What did that energy boom leave in the Green River corridor at the Hey Joe Mine? A loading station for uranium ore, a rusted Allis Chalmers bulldozer, and scattered industrial artifacts like oil drums, compressors, truck cabs, and stoves all ventilated with bullet holes.
We saw no oil sheen. We heard delightful bird songs in the morning, discovered 800-year-old Fremont era rock art and even spied a prehistoric stacked stone lookout high on a narrow cliff ledge. During a five-day float we saw only one other boating party so we had time among ourselves to talk, laugh, sing, and wish the beer was colder.
“The river flowed high and the bugs laid low. With each day, our group became more closely knit. Clocks lost all meaning as we followed the rhythm provided by the sun and moon. By the end, I wished we could all just go back to the start… except that the cedar gnats were beginning to buzz,” states naturalist M.K. Thompson for the San Juan Mountains Association.
On our last day during a silent morning float we detected the faint buzz of mosquitos, not yet ready to sting, so our timing had been perfect and we missed the June hatch. We unloaded our gear, had lunch, and took the shuttle up the winding dirt road from Mineral Bottom. We’d had five glorious days without cell phones or computers or news. On the way into town as the road changed from gravel to pavement we passed the entrance to Island in the Sky, one of the most famous vistas in all of Canyonlands.
A new gas well stood near the turn off. Another drilling rig was just going up.
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Andrew Gulliford is a professor of History and Environmental Studies at Fort Lewis College. He can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu
I well remember this area when it was more pristine in the 1970s; I lived in Southeastern Utah!
Little did I realize as a kid that Utah would be up for grabs for the highest bidder.
Even in the 1970s, many (not all) “conservatives” in Utah seem to regard their State as a big pile of rocks, as a commodity. The present leadership doesn’t seem to have the maturity, morality (yes, conservation IS a moral issue), and will to protect this matchless land from corporate predators.
I’ve done many canoe trips putting in at Mineral Bottom and down to the Confluence. Every time I read about this oil boom in that area my heart breaks. It’s a one-of-a-kind place, they aren’t making any more of them. Something needs to be done to preserve it better for ourselves and our children. They’ve already raped California, Arizona, Idaho, Texas and Wyoming, just let us have this one part of the country to enjoy!
I have visited the Canyonlands National Park area 8 times in the past 15 years, and it is the most magnificent area I have ever been to. Last week I visited again, and stayed in the Deadhorse Point State Park. It was quite upsetting to see oil rigs and roads to these polluting areas, springing up in this spectacular area. I thought I had found paradise, but the oil companies are ruining my dream and millions of others, for such a tiny amount of oil. We don’t need this. We need to move on. We need renewable energy, that will not harm our environment and our population.
I have spent 6 months of 40 years exploring the red rocks and canyons in the Moab area. The oil and gas boom starting tainting the night sky during the Bush era, and has obviously worsened since. In all of my trips, having met hundreds of people from town and from around the world, many have spoken in awe about the place. None have advocated oil and gas drilling. There are a few greedies, and many who just want relief. What has to be done to stop them?