By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
At Sand Wash, Utah, a dusty slice of back country 45 miles from the nearest paved road, river-raft guide John Weisheit lectures tourists about the history of the Green River and the wilderness experience that will soon unfold for them.
Climbing into rafts, they float on chocolate waters, following the path of 19th century explorer John Wesley Powell, beneath the cliffs of Desolation Canyon. No car engines or cellphones mar this trip far away from it all.
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But soon, Mr. Weisheit says he may chop all wilderness references from his little lecture. They'll ring hollow, he says, if Sand Wash, a onetime crossing for pioneers and cattle, echoes instead with the sounds of diesel engines and drilling rigs exploring for oil and gas.
Wednesday, in the biggest sale of its kind in Utah history, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offered at auction oil- and gas-exploration leases on more than 360,000 acres of rugged back country - including UT-201, a 120-acre chunk of Green River flood plain that abuts Sand Wash, and another 16,000 acres a few miles away.
Not long ago such remote regions seemed on track to one day become officially protected wilderness areas. Now they're part of a huge debate over the proper use of public lands in the United States. At issue: When does energy security trump wilderness protection?
