Jackson Hole news | Jackson Hole feature | Jackson Hole environmental | Jackson Hole sports | Today's News

Seismo Crew
The leading edge of the energy push makes a rumble as it approaches Jackson Hole.

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr.

MERNA ­ It's twilight and the "vibe ops" swing their massive four-wheel rigs into formation to begin a shift's work. In cabs that reach 12 feet above the sagebrush, the drivers steer their 62,000-pound "vibe buggies" over the rolling plains heading for the orange and pink flagging a surveyor has placed ahead.

The lead operator stops on the spot and the other three pull up behind. Hydraulic platforms descend from the machines' bellies and jack up the 36-foot long rigs.

A radio signal starts the rumbling in unison. The engines rev and the vibrators go to work, shaking the earth as if to ply away its secrets. All around the massive machines the ground trembles in response.

This is the Merna 3-D seismic project, "The Program" as workers call it. It's being run across 265 square miles of public and private land in the northern end of Sublette County near the crossroads of Merna, about an hour south of Jackson. In a valley surrounded by some of Wyoming's most spectacular mountains ­ the Wind River, Wyoming, Gros Ventre and Salt River ranges ­ the geophysical company Veritas is making a three-dimensional underground map it can show to clients looking for natural gas.

That could be an advantage to an industry that has seen 28 of 33 wells drilled in the area come up dry. With the Merna project, explorers hope to map first, then drill where appropriate.

And as they approach Jackson Hole, Veritas workers know they're coming close to environmentalists' ground. Paul MacDonald, a Veritas recording crew manager from Calgary, points to the three-and-a-half-foot-wide tires that support the buggies. They're low-ground-pressure tires inflated to only 16 psi and designed not to scuff and rip.

"You spread out all the weight," MacDonald says. "You're not damaging the ground."

In six months, Veritas will send crews back into the area to pick up missed flagging, stakes, geophones or whatever else might have been lost or left behind. MacDonald says they frequently can't see where exploration has taken place.

"You've got to bring a GPS back to find the program," he says. "For the most part, you're blind trying to find things."

The big wheels roll gently over the soil, especially when its covered by snow, as it has been recently. But sagebrush is crushed, especially big sagebrush.

The buggies leave a trail through the high-altitude desert vegetation. Small plants bounce back. Some big ones are broken over, their stems crushed. The size of the machines suggest they would cause more damage, but it's also difficult to assess how lasting their imprint will be.

Some workers say it will take perhaps a year or so for the vibe buggies' route to disappear. A study prepared by a consultant for the BLM says the wheels kill up to half the big sagebrush, damaging up to 20 percent more. Over the 169,550-acre area 1,070 acres of sage will be killed, half as much again damaged. The squad of four vibe buggies will drive about 970 miles. "Troubleshooters" on ATVs will cross another 7,900 miles. All the tires will touch 2.8 percent of the project area. They're supposed to try to avoid sagebrush taller than 2 feet. In some cases, the study says, crushing decadent sagebrush will lead to rejuvenation.

The vibe buggies send out waves that bounce off underground formations and are reflected back up to sensors, or geophones, stuck into the ground. Hundreds of them, each about four inches tall, are laid out in groups along straight lines and hooked together by cables. The lines stretch up to nine miles from one side of The Program to the other.

Over the course of about four months, the vibe buggies will run 24 hours a day. They shake for 10 seconds, then the observer records for five. This is repeated six times before the buggies drive 220 feet to the next station and repeat the process. By the time the program is completed, the buggies will have stopped at 15,163 stations. In places where they cannot reach ­ wetlands and steep slopes ­ explosives will be set off in drill holes.

Some time next year, Veritas clients will gather in a movie theater in Houston where the three-dimensional underground view will be projected on a huge screen. Translating the Merna vibrations into that picture requires a series of instruments, the first of which are the geophones. These sensors are connected to observer stations ­ trucks with a mobile listening laboratory mounted on the back. Alain Viau, a senior observer, sits in one and rattles off a series of numbers over the radio as his battery of instruments records the peculiar formations, some as deep as 30,000 feet.

Viau can't tell much from the cryptic wavy lines that print out from one of his machines. It will take experts with powerful computers back in Houston to put the whole picture together. But first, someone's got to put down and pick up 790 miles of geophone cable, one segment at a time.

Enter Ernest Cantu and his crew of juggies. Dressed in Carhartt work cloths, heavy sweat shirts and hard hats, Cantu, Arnulfo Alverea, Ramon Rosas and James Overland walk a straight line across the sagebrush hills picking up yards and yards of cable. As they do their job, a pair of deer bolts past them, scared off by a helicopter ferrying gear.

With the practiced moves of someone familiar with his task, Cantu loops the cable over his head two yards at a time as he accumulates a large electronic necklace. Every quarter mile or so a helicopter has dropped a big, canvas bag, and when the crew reaches it, they fill it with survey stakes, flagging, loops of cable, tangles of geophones and batteries.

When they've finished a job, a troubleshooter comes along behind on an ATV to hitch the bag to the airship and it's whisked off to a staging area to be prepared for its next use. A similar crew works ahead of the trucks, laying the cable and geophones out.

The BLM has placed some restrictions on the Merna program. It won't allow the vibe buggies to trample willows. In wetland areas, explosives in drill holes are to be used to shake the ground. Some places that are crucial winter range are off limits.

And many of those involved try to be sensitive. MacDonald drives slowly where he knows wildlife is present. He's a fly fisherman who angled on the New Fork and other area blue-ribbon trout streams when he was on his last project near Pinedale. And Viau, who skis at Canada's famous Whistler-Blackcomb resort, likes the mountains surrounding his lonely observation post. He hopes to bring his skis back for some time on the slopes when he returns from Canada.

Veritas has some 60 people working on the project. Many spend six weeks on, two off, working 12 hours a day. The pay is great, they say. The company will pump more than $1.4 million into the Sublette economy before it leaves near the end of the year. That will buy a lot of motel rooms in Big Piney, burritos at Daniel Junction.

Veritas hopes energy companies will take advantage of its work. The underground picture won't show where oil and gas lies, but will indicate geological structures that could hold reserves.

And the BLM says the impact of the search won't be that great. Eldon Allison, assistant field manager for minerals and lands at the Pinedale Field Office, says the ground will heal. "Given a little time, you can hardly tell where they've been," he says.

Conservationists fret about energy push
Merna seismo work may lead to development.

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr.

The BLM and the Veritas seismograph company say that the effects of the Merna seismic project are only temporary, but the object of the exploration has a larger purpose.

Oil and gas companies use seismograph information to base decisions on leasing, exploration and even development. So following seismograph mapping, conservationists expect an increase in oil and gas drilling.

Linda Baker, the coordinator of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition, said she is worried about what may be in store. Hired by a collection of environmental groups to be a watchdog in the area, she's kept track of a steady energy advance toward Jackson Hole. Already development has surrounded Big Piney and Marbleton, moved west to the Johna Field south of Pinedale, and now is occurring above the Pinedale Anticline near that town.

"I feel that there is a huge tidal wave coming at us," Baker said. "I think the industry has us in their crosshairs and the BLM is doing everything they can to accommodate industry.

"But I think BLM feels it can pull the wool over the public's eyes by not putting out information," she said. "So we have to be wary. We have to be vigilant. We have to ask questions, and we have to be ready to act as soon as we hear about the newest stuff. We really need a great deal of public involvement."

Eldon Allison, assistant field manager for minerals and lands at the BLM office in Pinedale, rejects Baker's contention.

"We've put out whatever we know," Allison said. "We don't put out something until we know there's a real project proposal that's going to happen."

Both point to the Merna 3-D seismic project as an example. Allison said the BLM put out a notice that it was going to do a study, got 17 or so comments, and incorporated them into its environmental analysis. But Baker said it was a poor job of public involvement.

That's because once the study was released, the public didn't have an opportunity to read, comment on and criticize it. Such feedback is routine with agencies like the Park Service and Forest Service. Baker is even skeptical about the conclusions that the BLM's study reaches.

"I think that it is based on the assumption in most cases impacts will be minimal or non-existent when the BLM has not conducted studies on various things," she said.

She ticks off a long list of shortcomings ­ no information on cumulative effects on big game, underground water flows and recharge, or surface water studies. All this comes at a time when the BLM admits its land-use plan for the area needs updating, Baker said. Yet rather than revise that plan prior to committing land for exploration and development, the BLM is charging ahead, she said.

Today the BLM is leasing its land in Sublette County at a steady pace following a Bush administration doctrine that calls for no obstacles. That message is plainly stated in a memo and review of leasing distributed by the BLM's state director in Utah.

"The current administration has assigned a high priority to oil and gas exploration and production in this country, including increased access to oil and gas resources on public lands and expedited processing of federal drilling permits [APD] and rights-of-way [ROW] grants," the report distributed by Robert A. Bennett on Jan. 4, 2002, states.

Conservation groups have appealed the Merna 3-D project, though it appears the work will be concluded before anyone turns their attention to the protest. They're also objecting to a drilling project on wildlife winter range, complaining about the lack of opportunity for public input. And they worry about how leasing will affect wildlife, including antelope that migrate from Grand Teton National Park, deer that summer in the Gros Ventre Range and dwindling populations of sage grouse.

As development marches north, industry is looking next toward the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It is considering leasing public land in and around the Hoback Basin that surrounds the town of Bondurant.

Even more is brewing, Baker says. In southern Sublette County near La Barge, industry has undertaken the "Infinity Project," she says. It involves six coal bed methane wells. Companies have received DEQ approval to increase the size of compressors for the wells by 10 times, Baker says.

"They have found coal bed methane that's financially feasible to extract," she said. "We don't have any consideration for coal bed methane and associated water problems in the Pinedale Resource Management Plan. They are not working with the documents they are legally mandated to."

The BLM's Allison said the methane development near La Barge is different from that in the Powder River Basin that's given ranchers and conservationists so many fits. There, water that flows from shallow methane wells is left to run out on the surface.

At La Barge, "The deposits are more like 3,500 ft deep," Allison said. "So basically the facilities and technology is very similar to what is used to develop gas in a normal gas field." Water "is not flowed off. It is re-injected. It's much friendlier to the environment."

U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, a Republican, lent his party's perspective on the issue when visiting Jackson Hole recently. Thomas backed the Forest Service when it proposed the land not be committed for leasing. But he admits that other places, like the plains and hills of Merna, may change. "It would be nice to have all the beauty of the 1890s but you have to have the convenience of 2002," he said.

Baker thinks that's wrong and the BLM is not doing its job. "Right and left, I think they're acting capriciously," she said.

Respond to this article by e-mailing publisher@jhnewsandguide.com