Aim of Nevada Anti-Fracking Suit to Block Drilling

A rural Nevada group is asking a federal judge to block the sale of oil and gas leases they say will be used for hydraulic fracturing and other development that poses a much greater threat to sage grouse and other wildlife than the U.S. government claims.

The Bureau of Land Management concluded in February any energy exploration resulting from the fracking would have little or no impact across about 270 square miles of central Nevada.

But the Reese River Basin Citizens Against Fracking says those assumptions are based on unrealistic expectations that the little interest shown in oil and gas in Nevada historically will continue. They said in a lawsuit filed in Reno in July the BLM is ignoring a recently discovered shale deposit that some say could become one of the nation’s most valuable.