Saving Wyoming’s Hoback: The Grassroots Movement that Stopped Natural Gas Development

In late 2012, crowds gathered to hear a long anticipated announcement: The Trust for Public Land had prevented natural gas development in the remote Hoback Basin of Wyoming by buying the leases owned by Plains Exploration Company. This would not have happened without the extraordinary will and expertise of local citizens. Unchallenged, the proposed natural gas development in the national forest near Bondurant, Wyoming, would have brought roads, pipelines, water and air pollution, and a complete change in the character of the landscape and its communities.

Retired schoolteachers, mine workers, big game hunters and outfitters, and other stakeholders combined their knowledge of the area to achieve a single goal: prevent the industrialization of the wild country that was their home. Too Special to Drill tells the inspiring story of determined citizens who worked together to protect the land that they loved and made a difference.