Upper Green River Valley Time-Series Images

We've just added to our time-series of images showing the spread of drilling in the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline natural-gas fields, located on public lands in western Wyoming's upper Green River valley -- the southern part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The new images are SPOT XS satellite pics taken in September 12, 2006 and September 27, 2007. We've applied a "natural-color" process to these images so that vegetation will appear green and water blue, in keeping with the earlier Landsat images in these series. Drilling is booming in both fields, with new drilling plans released by the Bureau of Land Management last year that will add thousands of new wells to these fields.

Google Earth users, download the KMZ file for the Jonah Field to explore the roads, well pads, and other facilities in this area in 1-meter detail; the Google image was taken in August 2006.

Go here to learn more about drilling in this area and what you can do, and here to read more about SkyTruth's other work in the upper Green.

Upper Green River Valley Video Now On EmPivot

If you haven't seen it yet, check out our 10-minute, narrated video tour of natural-gas drilling in the upper Green River valley area of western Wyoming (the southern part of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem). It's a mashup of Google Earth flyover sequences, photos taken from the air and ground, and GIS information that tells the story of the impacts of energy development on this region:
It's been available for online viewing through YouTube. Now you can also view it online at EmPivot, a new site for environmental videos that provides higher-resolution viewing. Compare the YouTube version of our video with the EmPivot version.

And if you'd like to download the full-screen version for standalone play, help yourself to either the Windows Media Player or the QuickTime versions (warning - very large files, broadband only!). Our Upper Green River Valley image gallery is another resource packed with images and photos, featuring the spread of natural-gas infrastructure across a vast landscape as the booming Jonah and Pinedale Anticline fields have grown over the past decade. You can learn more about this, and see some nifty time-series animations of SkyTruth imagery, at the Upper Green River Valley Coalition website.

Drilling Fluid "Waterfall" in Colorado - Natural Gas Not So Clean

Been hearing a lot lately about how "clean" natural gas is as an energy source. Well... the Colorado Department of Natural Resources just learned about four spills of waste drilling fluids into Garden Gulch, a tributary of West Parachute Creek in western Colorado. There is intensive drilling for natural gas occurring throughout the area around the Roan Plateau. Critics of the Bureau of Land Management's recently announced plan to allow drilling on top of the as-yet untouched Plateau -- including Governor Ritter and Senator Salazar -- are worried that this is exactly the kind of thing that will happen, polluting surface water and ground water.

One of these spills, totaling 1.2 million gallons, created a most unnatural wonder: a frozen "waterfall" composed mostly of spilled drilling fluids, according to the DNR. Check out the photos in our image gallery. When this thing thaws out it will run directly into the creek. Bad news for the trout, bad news for fishermen.