Goodbye "Scenic Route" to Yellowstone

Let me be Paul Revere and ride through town yelling, “THE UGLY IS COMING! THE UGLY IS COMING!” An ugly 375 acre gash on our local beauty called a pit mine is set to be located smack dab next to Highway 120 on the near-approach to town. This is wrong. Wyo-Ben Pit 108T will have absolutely no benefit to our pretty tourist town and will only hurt us.

1 - Goodbye “SCENIC ROUTE”! It won’t be tucked back from our tourist route unseen behind a mountain. The mine and all its hideous industrial mess will be right on our main road. For years motels, restaurants, realtors, businesses, this newspaper, local government and countless citizens have worked together to promote us as “The Scenic Route to Yellowstone.” If this mine goes through it will turn hundreds of acres of beauty into a nasty scraped-off open wound. As an added bonus ugly mining equipment and trucks will be strewn around; an industrial feast for the nature starved tourist’s eyes. “Yech! Look Honey; just like home. This was supposed to be the scenic route.”

2--Hello dangerous traffic! For the next 10 years we get big trucks on 45 mph “load roads” entering/exiting the highway where tired travelers and truckers already come barreling down the hill too fast. We get a new intersection where trucks piled high with greasy bentonite (“Opps, I spilled a little”) interact with tourists, school buses, teams headed to games, ranch families coming to town and possibly a drunk driver. This mixture can lead to wrecks and maybe even deaths--unnecessary deaths.

3--Highway location unnecessary! Wyoming has millions of tons of bentonite; literally thousands of other spots they can mine. In Hot Springs County we only have this one town! Don’t hit us in the area that’s closest to our pocketbook--tourism, or the area that’s closest to our hearts--our families’ safety. The chump change BLM will get from leasing our land won’t be missed by the feds. Wyo-Ben has plenty of other spots to scrape besides Thermopolis.

4--Damage to wildlife and Owl Creek! This will have a huge impact on nature. Nearby homeowners see a large herd of antelope there almost daily. Even Wyo-Ben admits it will do big time damage. A 2008 study for this mine was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WG&F) Neither one thought it was such a hot idea:

“The FWS response indicated possible concern for mountain plovers, nesting raptor species, black-footed ferrets, migratory birds, and greater sage grouse (Exhibit D-9.1). The WG&F response indicated concern for mule deer and antelope, sage grouse, and the protection of Owl Creek from sediment loads due to off site sedimentation (Exhibit D-9.2).”

Wyo-Ben lists methods they’d use to lessen damage. Every method is sad and ineffective when you consider the tough reality ...that they’ll scrape off 30 inches of topsoil and pile bentonite up on a pristine animal habitat. And after a decade they’ll do a “five year recovery program” reseeding? How about just don’t do it? Nothing they do to “alleviate the impact” on nature can match just not showing up at all! Do we really want to find out if a few straw blankets can keep Owl Creek sediment-free?

5--Once it starts, more could follow! The squeaky wheel gets oiled. Pick your preferred cliche, but we all know they’re cliches for a reason. If we say nothing the BLM will think we don’t care and give us more mines.

6--No new jobs! I asked longtime locals and they say no new jobs for Thermop will come from this. So what’s to like? When I researched relocating to Wyoming beauty was my biggest priority. Thermopolis is the prettiest, best-all-round town in Wyoming. Let’s keep it that way.

PLEASE PROTEST THIS NOW. Get online this minute before daily life intrudes. Tell BLM you do not want this blight on Thermop. Because in their very quiet, not-much-publicized governmental way BLM is “seeking input.”

Let's input ‘em! Send an email stating your opposition now to: worland_wymail@blm.gov. Put “Wyo-Ben Pit 108T” in the subject line.