Jonah Interagency Office Monitoring and Mitigation Project Summary

Antelope in front of an oil and gas operation in a high desert sagebrush environment

The Jonah Natural Gas Field is an area of west central Wyoming, south of the town of Pinedale, in
the Upper Green River Basin. Jonah’s 30,000 acres of rolling sagebrush are 94 percent federally
owned. The area has one of the richest concentrations of natural gas in the United States, estimated
at more than 14 trillion cubic feet.


The Jonah Interagency Mitigation and Reclamation Office (JIO) was established by the Jonah Infill
Development Project (JIDP) Record of Decision in March 2006 with responsibility for on-site
monitoring, off-site mitigation, and adaptive management recommendations for the Jonah Field as
development proceeds.


The level of development is expected to cause impacts to some resources (especially wildlife) that
cannot be adequately mitigated on-site during field development. Therefore, Operators in the JIDP
contributed $24.5 million in mitigation funds to develop projects whose focus is to enhance habitat
for wildlife usage and protection.


Additionally, air quality mitigation for the JIDP was jointly developed by the BLM, EPA, WDEQ,
USFS and NPS which created mitigation requirements based on results of the supplemental air
quality report completed in the summer of 2005. Mitigation requirements included a reduction of
projected visibility impacts to nearby Class I airsheds by 80 percent from the worst-case emissions
scenario.


Funds for the JIDP mitigation and monitoring projects are held in the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural
Resources Trust account and are administered by the JIO.

Publication Date

Region

Wyoming

Organization

Collection: Public Room
Category: Report

Keywords

Oil and Gas
Partnerships