The latest trend in energy resources is coal-bed methane, a colorless, odorless, tasteless natural gas found mixed with water in seams of coal buried close to the earth's surface. Like conventional natural gas, it is used to heat homes. Coal bed methane wells are inexpensive to develop and can provide a quick and large return wherever coal lies close to the ground, as it does in much of the West.

Methane production in Wyoming has filled the landscape with giant man-made pools to contain the water pumped out of the ground during the drilling process. No one knows what the future effects will be of extracting all that water. In some places, wells have dried up; elsewhere, methane and other gases have been loosed. The Four Corners region is also rich in methane, and the BLM has already permitted 18,000 wells around Farmington and Aztec, New Mexico; the pumps, fences, and tanks are scattered in every nook and cranny of the terrain. In nearby Bloomfield, the skyline has been transformed by the silver towers of the refineries that have sprung up to process the gas. Another 10,000 wells have been approved by the BLM and are moving forward, even though the decision has been appealed by the San Juan Citizens Alliance.

Besides methane, the region has an abundance of cultural resources. This was the heart of the prehistoric Anasazi civilization, which flourished until about the thirteenth century; it is dotted with thousands of crumbled adobe-brick pueblos filled with pottery, burial mounds, rock art, and other objects, most of them unexcavated. Some 93 percent of the BLM's cultural artifacts have not been studied or even inventoried. "The BLM does not have good science when it comes to its treasure trove of cultural resources," says Barbara Pahl, director of the Mountains and Plains Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "And it is a treasure trove."

Nor does the BLM have the funding to care for the land and its artifacts. In 2006, Congress provided the agency with $2.27 to manage each acre of the National Landscape Conservation System, while the national parks get $19 per acre, according to the National Trust.

One of the many notable places at risk is Nine Mile Canyon, northeast of Price, Utah. The thousands of petroglyphs that line the canyon walls—considered among the finest collections of early Native American rock art—are under serious threat from nearby natural gas development. "The canyon has become an industrial zone," says Jerry Spangler, head of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance, which is studying the impact of energy development on archaeological remains. Airborne dust from truck traffic has covered much of the artwork, and removing the artifacts without harming them is difficult, to say the least.

The roads that energy companies create to reach the remote sites are also threatening the ruins by allowing access to places that heretofore have been protected by their isolation. "We've documented ATV tracks going right to the archaeological sites and driving on top of them," Spangler says of areas in Utah's canyon country. "We're losing sites right and left."