Dinosaur National Monument

The project would entail flooding most of Dinosaur National Monument, a park that now covers 210,000 acres and offers river rafting, cross-country hiking, and a chance to view ancient petroglyphs as well as 1,500 dinosaur fossils embedded in rock.

"This discovery emerged from a larger investigation of two fossil lizard skulls from Dinosaur National Monument in Utah," said Dalton Meyer, a graduate student in Yale's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and first author of a study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Enefit plans to operate on about 7,000 acres of desert land just south of Dinosaur National Monument and produce 50,000 barrels of oil per day, almost doubling the entire basin's production.

Not far from Cross Mountain, officials at Dinosaur National Monument have raised their own concerns.

We are here in early June, and the water levels feel sporting at Deerlodge Park, the boat ramp in Dinosaur National Monument where we launch our trip.