ELKO, Nev. (AP) — Two environmental groups have dropped opposition to plans for a natural gas pipeline that would run 680-mile miles from Oregon through Nevada and Utah to Wyoming.
That’s because the El Paso Corp. has agreed to spend $20 million to help protect sagebrush habitat in the four states and buy grazing permits from ranchers willing to part with them.
Officials for the nation’s leading natural gas pipeline company based in Houston joined joined leaders of the conservation groups in heralding the pact as unprecedented.
It calls for the company over the next 10 years to spend $15 million to set up a conservation fund for the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project and a $5 million fund for the Oregon Natural Desert Foundation.
