In Wyoming, the Dark Side of America’s Thirst for Energy
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| May 1, 2008 |  View for printing |
ALEXANDRA FULLER has two homes that are 60 miles — and a world — apart.
One is in Wilson, Wyo., a village just outside the mountain resort town of Jackson. It is tucked into a steep hillside, a stone’s throw from the steep two-lane highway that climbs over the rugged Teton Mountains to Idaho.
It is here that Ms. Fuller has what she calls the good life, Rocky Mountain style. After she serves a dinner of tender Montana lamb and roasted potato, she settles into a sofa in front of a roaring fire in her 2,500-square-foot home, where she strokes her dogs; Tanq, a Labrador, and Bertie and Dilly, two corgis. Two of her three children, Sarah, 14, and Cecily, 2, are at home; Fuller, 11, is at a sleepover. In their free time the family can go out cross-country skiing or river rafting. But there is a nearby world that obsesses her, a world she finds unsettling. She and her husband, Charlie Ross, a real-estate broker, recently built a one-room log cabin in Sublette County, more rural and far less rarefied. It offers an expansive, soul-stirring view of the extraordinary Wind River Range and the high plains — but at the same time a window into what she considers Wyoming’s destruction by the development of gas and oil fields.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/ga ... fuller.html
Reader Comments:
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The thirst for real estate commissions has driven the hazing of this majestic part of the United States. Developers, brokers and agents look past the majestic wildlife and landscapes towards the five figure commissions that will beautify their own landscape. The sight of drilling rigs is no more obnoxious than the twenty million dollar cabins that are plastered about our nations most pristine areas. These megacabins will need the fuel to keep the driveway free from snow and the swimming pools ready for a dip. Most of these homes use more energy in a year, than that of six average households. This is obscene when you consider that they are often occupied for less than two months of the year. It makes sense to require a minimum use of solar, geothermal, wind or other site generated energy sources to power the needs of these energy hogs. That would be good policy and it would create jobs that did not include cleaning the toilet. --David Williams
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