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SOURCE: Center for Biological Diversity

DATE: December 3, 2018

SNIP: The Trump administration plans to auction more than 900,000 acres for oil and gas extraction on the doorstep of Nevada’s only national park and other protected public lands. It would be the largest single lease sale of public lands in the lower 48 states in at least a decade.

“The Trump administration is doubling down on its reckless ‘drill-anywhere’ strategy,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Nevadans cherish our national park and wildlife refuges. It’s disgusting that Trump officials are willing to permanently defile these spectacular places to appease the oil industry.”

The Bureau of Land Management lease sale, scheduled for March 12, 2019, will auction off public land next to Great Basin National Park and Ruby Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, an internationally known migratory waterfowl stopover cherished by birders and hunters.

One parcel comes within a half-mile of South Ruby Lake, where a spill of fracking fluids or a well failure could contaminate one of the Great Basin’s most vibrant aquatic ecosystems.