Drilling near Spiral Jetty postponed

Art in America, June-July, 2008 by Stephanie Cash

Thanks to a last-minute blizzard of protests, the decision on whether to grant permission to allow drilling in the Great Salt Lake in the area of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) was postponed [see "Artworld," Mar. '08]. By Feb. 13, the end of the public comment period, the State of Utah had received over 3,100 written messages, as well as 300 phone calls, from concerned parties in the U.S. and abroad. The Dia Art Foundation, steward of the earthwork, met with state officials, and together reached an agreement to establish a buffer zone as part of a mixed-use resource plan. The state will consult with Dia before making further decisions. The drilling interest, Pearl Montana Exploration & Production, has also been inundated with correspondence in favor of protecting the jetty.

At press time, the state was still reviewing how the oil would be transported from the site, whether by barge or buried pipeline. Most of the environmental disruption is expected to occur in the exploratory drilling phase. Though the staging area for drilling and production is about 16 miles southeast of the jetty, if the wells produce, rigs would be installed about 5 miles from the work.

Environmentalists have also sounded an alarm about the plan, citing the threat to area wildlife, which includes birds, foxes and coyotes. What most visitors see on the road to the jetty, however, is an idyllic scene of rolling green hills dotted with cows, four of which were recently shot in a spate of local animal killings (which also included the nearby shootings of 10 other cows, two dogs and a pig, and the poisoning by tainted peanut-butter balls of at least 11 prairie dogs). The state's Humane Society is offering a $5,000 reward for information, in addition to smaller rewards offered by local groups.

In related earthwork news, Dia is also seeking to protect Walter De Maria's Lightning Field (1977) from real-estate and industrial development. The foundation owns or controls 16,000 acres around the one-mile-by-one-kilometer work in western New Mexico. in the spring, in its goal to establish a three-mile radius around the work, Dia was seeking to raise $1.1 million to purchase an additional 6,000-acre tract. A foundation spokesperson expected that goal to be reached by mid-May, after this issue went to press.

--"Artworld" is compiled by Stephanie Cash and David Ebony