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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A Denver company is surveying for oil and gas over 23 square miles of Uintah County land that conservation groups wanted left untouched for possible wilderness designation.
The Bureau of Land Management approved the Main Canyon three-D Seismic Survey on October 6th.
Evergreen Resources is drilling small holes for more than 14-hundreds underground explosives. It will record the sound waves to spot oil or gas traps deep underground.
The Denver company is working off Seep Ridge in the far south of Uintah County, about ten miles west of the Colorado border.
The survey area covers critical elk range in pinion-juniper woodlands that have been proposed for wilderness protection by the Utah Wilderness Coalition.
The B-L-M has refused to endorse Seep Ridge for wilderness, and only Congress can create wilderness areas.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
