Supporters say the drilling, which would take place on the bleak northern plains, can be done with minimal damage to the environment.

At one station, the medical supplies were unhooked from the train's engine car and left on a bleak plain.

Sondra was looking out across a bleak plain that seemed absolutely flat and endless.

It seemed not far away when they first came upon it, rising from a bleak and lonely plain.

Bob spent the day worrying, looking at the bleak plains and wondering what he would do in such a place without her.

Benbow's words came back, and looking at the bleak plain on which they stood, he felt he better understood them.

She was traveling, fast, across the bleak and frozen plains.

There were no mountains or trees to break the endless, bleak plain.

Near nightfall they came to a bleak, level, snowswept plain.

Both looked out at the bleak plains, brown and barren.