Little Missouri National Grassland, North Dakota
At Stake
Rolling hills, rugged buttes and colorful canyons where Theodore Roosevelt developed his conservation ethic.
Threat
Oil and gas companies continue to push for and receive more oil and gas leasing permits.
Solution
North Dakotans can write their three members of Congress to ask for permanent protection of the area as Congressionally-designated Wilderness.
What’s at Stake?
“Will the people of today, the people of tomorrow, continue to feel the pull of land that beckons to a sample of our country as it was, a country of space and beauty and a sense of freedom?"
-Olaus Murie, one of The Wilderness Society’s foundersThe Little Missouri National Grassland in North Dakota is a living reminder of the values of our Western heritage and the importance of our conservation tradition. It was in the heart of this expansive grassland that Theodore Roosevelt developed the conservation ethic that would provide his greatest lasting legacy.
Today the rolling hills, rugged buttes, colorful canyons, and 200-year old Rocky Mountain juniper forests are still home to the antelope, elk, mule deer, coyotes, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, mountain lions, and golden eagles that Roosevelt hunted and admired. Like Roosevelt, thousands of hunters, campers, canoeists, horseback riders, and sightseers come to the grassland every year to enjoy the area’s quietly stunning vistas. In particular, the 96-mile Maah Daah Hey Trail has a lasting appeal to hikers and horseback riders who come to complete its winding journey through the Little Missouri Grassland valley.
The area is also of significant historical, archeological, and scientific importance. Fossilized crocodile bones, petrified stumps, early bison remains, and ancient dinosaur bones are found across the grassland. Also within the grassland are Native American archeological sites that recall a time when plains Indians followed the vast bison herds that once roamed this land.
In addition to Theodore Roosevelt’s recurring longstanding love affair with the Little Missouri Grassland, the area captured the imagination of other famous conservationists. Olaus Murie, one of The Wilderness Society’s founders, wrote about the Little Missouri Grassland on his visit to the region:
“Will the people of today, the people of tomorrow, continue to feel the pull of land that beckons to a sample of our country as it was, a country of space and beauty and a sense of freedom?
The sun went low and dusk was creeping over the valley below us. We watched that poetic quality of light envelop the cliffs and rims about us, and settle over the river bottom where we glimpsed the glean of water in the bends.
Not a serrated mountain range here, not a mossy forest, nor a lake studded paradise. Rather an open country, its trees are twisted and storm worn, and grow sparingly along the riverbanks. A raw country, a country in the making perhaps. This very fact, this character, the attributes of chiseled buttes and domes, the clay and prairie grass, the eagle, the prairie dogs, deer, coyote; the flocks of grouse at heads of the wooded draws—all these spell one phase of our west—not to be compared with different ones—to be taken and enjoyed for its own singular beauty and character. Ordinary country, but with an aura of the west—something that drew Roosevelt, the adventurous ones.”
Protection Status
When Lewis and Clark ventured past the Little Missouri they saw a vast sea of prairie grass, unbroken except for badland breaks and sculpted drainages. Tremendous herds of bison inhabited the plains and grizzly bears wandered the valleys. Today fewer than 220,000 acres of North Dakota’s 1 million acre Little Missouri National Grassland qualifies as Inventoried Roadless Area, a threshold requirement of designated Wilderness Areas. And even these areas are being broken apart into ever smaller chunks.
Of the 218,530 acres that qualified as roadless during the last Forest Service planning process, nearly half were released to surface disturbance by oil and gas development, allowing for a damaging network of roads and industry sprawl to impair the wild and open character of the grassland. Fewer than 120,000 acres remain restricted to “no surface occupancy.”
Of that 120,000 acres, the current Forest Service management plan signed in July of 2002 has set aside only 39,783 undeveloped acres as “Suitable for Wilderness,” an administrative designation. The 39,783 “Suitable for Wilderness” acres represent four distinct areas: Bullion Butte, Kinley Plateau, Long-X Divide, and Twin Buttes. Areas such as Lone Butte, adjacent to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, were not included due to oil industry pressure – despite the absence of private mineral ownership and a previous “not offered for lease” policy.
The 39,783 acres protected as “Suitable for Wilderness” make up less than 4 percent of the Little Missouri Grassland, and less than one-tenth of one percent of all the land in North Dakota.
Why is Little Missouri Grassland at Risk?
Oil and gas companies continue to push for and receive more oil and gas leasing permits within the Little Missouri Grassland. With each new lease sale, and each new subsequent well and road, the grassland is further broken apart by industry development, making it increasingly difficult to ever recover the game corridors, grazing grounds, and sweeping pristine landscapes that provided for the character that shaped the American West and the conservation ethic of Theodore Roosevelt and Olaus Murie. Recently oil and gas interests have even tried to develop a commercial road and concrete low-water crossing of the Little Missouri River adjacent to the Elkhorn Ranch Unit (Theodore Roosevelt’s historic home site and part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park) that would cut into the heart of the grassland, further fragmenting the fragile badlands ecosystem. It is critical to the future health of this magnificent landscape that every effort is made to defend and protect all undeveloped lands.
Current Oil and Gas Development
Today, an ever-tightening noose threatens the still significant islands of wondrously rich wild land in the Little Missouri National Grassland. Current federal energy policy has resulted in a five-fold increase in annual Applications for Permit to Drill, and increased use of Categorical Exclusions (limiting public involvement) speeds up that process. It is estimated that the Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario (an official 10-year forecast) will be reached within an unprecedented four years. In addition, inordinately saline water associated with current development has oil companies tapping into this arid landscape’s precious groundwater, threatening the ecosystem’s already delicate lifeline.
Solution
North Dakotans can write their three members of Congress – Senator Conrad, Senator Dorgan, and Representative Pomeroy – to urge them to give these last few special and wild places the protection they deserve, before it is too late. Ask for permanent protection as Congressionally-designated Wilderness for Long X Divide, Kinley Plateau, Bullion Butte and Twin Buttes, and for intervention on behalf of other precious areas, such as Lone Butte.
For more information
Bart Koehler, Wilderness Support Center, 970/247-8788
Jan Swenson, Badlands Conservation Alliance, 701/255-4958
