Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Bittersweet Boom
THE RUSH FOR OIL FLOODS WYOMING WITH JOBS, BUT IS IT ALSO SPOILING THE LAND?
By LISA TAKEUCHI CULLEN

A third-generation rancher on the windswept prairies of eastern Wyoming, Frank Eathorne doesn't have much time or use for complaining. But one day this spring, he drove 80 miles in his GMC truck with a BUSH-CHENEY bumper sticker to do just that. It wasn't that he minded the oil-and-gas boom currently flooding the state with jobs and royalties. The problem, he told a government panel in a hotel ballroom in Casper, is that the rush to drill in Wyoming is swiping the land right out from under its people.

"When my grandfather bought this place, he thought he owned it," Eathorne said. "He found out later he only owned the grass."

Like many landowners in the mineral-rich states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Montana, Eathorne owns the rights to only the surface of his 32,000 acres; the Federal Government owns most of what lies beneath. Washington, increasingly eager to find domestic sources of energy, is leasing the subsurface rights of those so-called split estates at an unprecedented pace to energy companies. Wyoming's abundance of gas reserves makes it especially attractive. The state's citizens have lived through energy booms--and busts--before. But while oil and gas jobs came and went, the ranch remained. This time, ranchers say, the boom risks ruining the land that has always sustained them for the easy-come, easy-go riches below.