Boom of Mixed Blessings

On the rolling prairies and in the regal valleys of Wyoming, where there are more cattle (1.4 million) than people (332,000), the standard headgear has long been the ten-gallon Stetson favored by ranch hands. But the Stetsons are now being joined by an increasing number of hard hats worn by coal miners, oil roughnecks, geologists and engineers.

Beneath the state's grazing lands lies the nation's richest treasure of high-quality, easily minable coal that the U.S. badly needs for energy.

The rush to exploit new or neglected energy sources is transforming the ranching economy of the whole Rocky Mountain region. In Montana, a $700 million electric generating complex is being built to convert local coal into power for the Pacific Northwest. In Colorado, a consortium of twelve companies is experimenting with ways to tap the oil and gas held in the state's vast shale deposits. In Utah, the leasing of shale lands has pumped $120 million into the state's coffers. But it is in Wyoming, where the antelope still play beside highways, that the changes are most noticeable.

Wyoming already ranks as the nation's leading producer of uranium and soda ash and is the source of more than 12 million bbl. of oil per year. But even greater promise is offered by more than 545 billion tons of coal. At present rates of use, Wyoming could supply the nation's total coal demand for a quarter-century. Much of the coal is low-polluting, low-sulfur sub-bituminous that lies in miles-long, 45-ft.-thick seams only a few feet below the surface.

The fuel, which can be extracted by relatively inexpensive strip mining, has started an immense coal rush. Many companies, including ARCO, Texaco, Kerr-McGee, Gulf, Exxon and Phillips Petroleum, are paying up to $1,000 an acre for grazing land that sold for only $60 an acre a year ago. Annual coal production--now 13.6 million tons--is expected to double by 1976.

The energy boom is taking place at the same time Wyoming's cattle industry is on the skids. Livestock prices have been falling, and ranchers have been selling out. Some of them fear that simply the presence of more people will upset their bucolic way of life even further. "We're talking about a life-style changing," says Bob Browne of the Federal Bureau of Land Management.

Good News. Social problems are the most intense in Rock Springs, a huge trove of coal, oil, shale, potash, sand, gravel, clay and cement rock. Since 1971, about 5,000 workers have moved in to build the giant Jim Bridger Power Plant-- and work in a newly discovered oilfield. Another wave of outsiders, lured by the expansion of trona mines, a source of widely used sodium compounds, and the reopening of old coal mines, is expected to increase the town's 26,000 population to 40,000 by 1976.

This, of course, is good news for businessmen. For example, John Anselmi's Outlaw Inn motel has enjoyed a 99% occupancy rate for 18 months, and Anselmi has sold 400 mobile homes (average price: $14,000) at his Wheel Estates showroom in the past year.

Brother Paul Anselmi has a flourishing auto dealership, a National Car Rental agency and various motel properties, and Uncle Angelo Anselmi's real estate business has climbed 40% since 1971.

For other residents, though, the population influx has been no blessing.

Classrooms built to accommodate 30 students are now bulging with 60. The streets are clogged nightly with traffic and with rough-and-ready miners, oil-stained roughnecks and prostitutes who have rushed in from out of state. One wiry hooker named Clovis marvels, "I made $300 my first day in town." Because houses are so expensive and scarce, many new arrivals move into tents or squalid mobile-home camps that are called "aluminum ghettos."

According to a report released by the University of Denver Research Institute last week, the crime rate in Rock Springs and surrounding Sweetwater County has increased by 60%, and the patient load at the mental-health clinic has jumped ninefold since the boom began. Other communities are bracing for a similar onslaught, but trying to avoid the problems. Anticipating that as many as 3,000 more people will move into Gillette (pop. 8,500) by the end of this year, town officials are building 1,500 housing units, two elementary schools and a $1 million recreation center.

Another worry is that increased strip mining will sully the often spectacular landscape. Wyoming ecologists were among those pushing for the tough federal strip-mining bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week. If the economic surge mars Wyoming's hard-working but casual and friendly lifestyle, the damage may not be easy to repair. "None of us like to grow this fast," says Rock Springs' Mayor Paul Wataha, "but you can't lock the gates to the city." Which means, of course, that the hard hats are in Wyoming to stay.

-- Named for the famous trapper, guide and raconteur.

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