ENDANGERED SPECIES: Enviro groups mostly pan BLM's latest proposals to save sage grouse
Scott Streater, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Monday, November 4, 2013
A coalition of conservation groups found mostly fault with the Bureau of Land Management's proposed plans to protect millions of acres of greater sage grouse habitat in five Western states, concluding that overall, they fail to protect the imperiled bird from energy development and other activity that could drive the grouse to extinction.
But the groups, led by WildEarth Guardians, gave BLM high marks for its proposed grouse management plan in Nevada and eastern California, finding that it adequately addresses impacts from oil and natural gas drilling and livestock grazing.
The groups say they have conducted an in-depth analysis of the three draft environmental impact statements (EISs) published Friday in the Federal Register. In total, the three draft plans cover 31 million acres of sage grouse habitat on BLM and Forest Service lands in Idaho, Nevada and Utah, along with parts of California and Montana (Greenwire, Oct. 31).
All three draft EISs are open for a 90-day public comment period ending Jan. 29.
BLM has released draft EISs or proposed resource management plan (RMP) amendments covering nine states as part of its ongoing effort to develop a "National Greater Sage-Grouse Planning Strategy" that would stretch across 10 Western states and cover the estimated 47 million acres of sage grouse habitat under BLM control. That national effort includes amending dozens of RMPs to incorporate policies and provisions designed to restore the bird and protect its dwindling sagebrush steppe habitat.
BLM and state leaders across the West are trying to keep the bird off the endangered species list, fearing that such a listing would damage the multistate region's economy, including its vital ranching, agricultural and energy sectors.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is under a court mandate to make a final determination on the grouse by 2015.
Mitch Snow, a BLM spokesman in Washington, D.C., said that the agency expects "to get thousands of comments" during the public comment period for the draft EISs, and that it will carefully review all of them.
The goal, Snow said, is to incorporate the comments into a sage grouse management plan that is consistently strong across the bird's range.
"We're rounding up all the comments we're getting and comparing them across the range, and we are seeking to build up as much consistency as possible," he said.
The concerns raised by WildEarth Guardians, Wild Utah Project and others in the analysis of the three draft EISs point to the direction the conservation community will try to push BLM to make changes to the draft plans.
One major area of concern outlined by the environmentalists is oil and gas development near sage grouse habitat.
The conservation groups say they are particularly worried about the proposed Utah plan, which covers 3.3 million acres of grouse habitat managed by BLM and the Forest Service.
"These Utah plan revisions offer the weakest protections from oil and gas drilling that we've seen proposed anywhere in sage grouse habitat," said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians.
The draft EIS covering 17 million acres in Nevada and northeastern California, however, "has some strong sage grouse protections," particularly where it concerns limiting livestock grazing on federal lands with grouse habitat, Molvar said.
"The overall approach to livestock grazing is among the strongest we've seen of the West-wide sage grouse plan amendments, and it addresses one of the most serious problems," he said.
He also praised BLM's proposal in the Nevada/California plan to adopt "no surface occupancy" restrictions on future oil and gas and geothermal power leases in areas of key sage grouse habitat.
The draft EIS covering Idaho and southwest Montana, which includes 11 million acres of grouse habitat on Forest Service and BLM lands, also earns praise from the groups for proposing to close much of Idaho to future oil and gas development "because almost the whole state is rated as having low potential for oil and gas," said Adam Rissien, WildEarth Guardians' Northern Rockies conservation manager in Missoula, Mont.
But Molvar said the proposed plan includes no enforceable standards, but only goals that lack "the kind of specific and adequate conservation measures required to maintain sage grouse in Idaho and southwest Montana."
"Sage grouse have declined for decades because of just this type of lackadaisical effort at protecting their habitat," he said. "We're calling on the federal agencies to roll up their sleeves and get to work creating scientifically sound, specific standards that can be shown to protect sage grouse and allow their populations to recover."
The conservation groups say one of the consistent failings in the proposals for Utah and for Idaho and southwest Montana is the allowance of oil and gas drilling and associated roads and infrastructure near sensitive grouse habitat.
BLM's National Technical Team of sage grouse experts in late 2011 issued a report recommending that new industrial activity not be allowed within 4 miles of grouse breeding areas, called leks. BLM's draft EIS in Utah would include a 4-mile buffer for new oil and gas developments, but that won't mean much because the proposal does not require such a buffer for existing leases in the state, said Allison Jones, a conservation biologist with the Wild Utah Project.
"Much of the most important sage grouse habitat in eastern Utah is already leased for oil and gas development," Jones said. "If the oil and gas industry is allowed to pursue high-density drilling on leases they already have, these lands will lose their value as strongholds for sage grouse."
And that, in turn, spells trouble for the fate of the sage grouse, said Kevin Mueller, program director for the Utah Environmental Congress.
"The bird's decline and widespread loss of habitat are warning us that things are out of balance and that our Western lands, clean air and water, and wildlife are at risk," Mueller said. "If everyone works together, we can establish common-sense safeguards that protect wildlife habitat and economic opportunities for us and for future generations."
