Bridger Teton National Forest Natural Resources

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May 5, 2013 Dear El Paso Times Newspaper Editor, I am writing this letter to you today, as a way of informing you of how the Bridger Teton National Forest natural resources must be conserved. The Bridger Teton National Forest is located in Western Wyoming, United States. The forest consists of 3.4 million acres, which that makes the forest the second largest National Forest outside of Alaska. This forest has remained virtually untouched by humans and is the largest continuance piece of pubic land in the lower 48 states. Many people us the area for many different outside recreational activities within its borders like fishing, mining, hunting and logging like camping. I believe that the country’s economy can benefit with the natural…show more content…
The forest is located in western Wyoming and it has 3.4 million acres of public land of which for the most part, it has remained virtually untouched by human presence and is the largest piece of public land in the lower 48 states. Some people think that drilling the forest for oil is a good thing that comes along with many benefits yet if we follow the “Four Steps for Risk Assessment” as listed in the text book Visualizing Environmental Science (Berg, Hager, & Hassenzahl, 2011) you can see how drilling oil and harvesting the forest’s natural resources will damage the local environment. “Hazard Identification” is the first step that clearly identifies the many hazards that come with drilling oil in the forest. A lot of heavy-duty machinery and vehicles will be necessary to assist in the drilling of the oil. Yet I think the worst part is the natural resources like trees that will be cut down to make room for the machinery and drilling as many of those have been there for years. Along with the trees and forest come the wildlife animals that have their home in the forest and depend on trees to survive. All these not to include the pollution that comes from all these machines and work that will be done in the…show more content…
Drilling the oil and cleaning the oil from the underground wells, is not something that will be done overnight as it will take several years just to take the oil out and a few more years to clean it out of which the forest will be exposed to many toxins through this process. This will affect and change the pollution, and the weather and health conditions of the environment. The rainfall will be exposed to this toxins and pollution, which will in turn harm the animals that will drink from that water. Once the forest has been touched with the drilling of the oil, it will permanently damage it, as the forest will never return to being like it originally was as if nothing had ever happened there. The last and final step is “Risk Characterization.” I believe that the damage to the Bridger Teton National Forest will be inevitable based on the information we have gathered in the two steps “Dose-response Assessment” and “Exposure Assessment.” As mentioned before, it will take many years for the forest conditions to return to its normal stage and these will affect every species in the

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