[MCN] Lawsuit Fights Special Interest Loopholes in Greater Sage-Grouse Plans

[Matthew Koehler]

Please don't believe the hype about the Sage Grouse plan being some sort of
'historic collaborative' achievement that 'saved' the Sage Grouse. The
devil is in the details, and thankful some groups still care more about
details than soundbites or claiming 'victory.'

For immediate release, February 25, 2016

*Contact:*
Erik Molvar, WildEarth Guardians, (307) 399-7910
Greta Anderson, Western Watersheds Project, (520) 623-1878
Todd Tucci, Advocates for the West, (208) 724-2142
Randi Spivak, Center for Biological Diversity, (310) 779-4894
Nancy Hilding, Prairie Hills Audubon Society, (605) 787-6779

*Lawsuit Fights Special Interest Loopholes in Greater Sage-Grouse Plans*
*Conservation Groups seek to restore science-based habitat protections on
public lands*

BOISE, *Idaho*— Conservation groups today filed a lawsuit
<http://cts.vresp.com/c/?WesternWatershedsPro/d58a751e1a/40ff770b14/8cb9df9b2a>
over
more than a dozen greater sage- grouse plans produced by federal agencies
that fail to protect this iconic western bird from a series of threats,
including fossil fuel development, grazing and mining. The plans cover
about 70 million acres of public lands in 10 states, administered by the
Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. The suit doesn’t
seek to eliminate the plans but to strengthen them with science-based
protections recommended by the government’s own scientists.

“The federal sage-grouse plans are a crazy-quilt of weak protections and
politically motivated loopholes that allow many of the most destructive
activities to continue,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with
WildEarth Guardians. “Federal agencies turned their backs on the habitat
protections recommended by their own scientists, and instead adopted
political compromises that can’t — and won’t — prevent further sage-grouse
declines.”

Because the Department of the Interior broke up the planning process into
fifteen different plans, the resulting blueprint is full of loopholes and
giveaways. Protections from oil and gas drilling are weakest in Wyoming,
which has the most abundant remaining sage-grouse populations and the
heaviest oil and gas development. Nevada has the biggest geothermal
industry of any sage-grouse state, but geothermal development in that state
doesn’t have to meet habitat-protection standards. And the largest
transmission lines currently in the planning stages have all been exempted
from sage-grouse protections under the federal plans. Well-developed
science, including the BLM’s own National Technical Team recommendations,
shows what greater sage-grouse need to survive and recover; yet the plans
fail to adopt these science-based protections.

“Amending all the federal plans to improve sage-grouse protections and
designate priority habitats is an important step forward, but ultimately
the federal plans failed to meet the scientifically established minimum
protections that sage-grouse require to survive,” said Nancy Hilding of
Prairie Hills Audubon Society. “This lawsuit is designed to strengthen
sage-grouse protections to at least meet minimum requirements needed to
maintain or recover populations on key habitats.”

Grazing is a chronic threat to sage-grouse habitat throughout the bird’s
range. The federal plans further undermine sage-grouse conservation by
delaying meaningful changes to livestock grazing for up to 10 years or
more. In addition to these delays, the plans do not go far enough in
restricting livestock trampling and disturbing nesting sage-grouse,
undermining successful reproduction. The failure to adequately address
grazing impacts will allow continued conversion of sagebrush habitat to
invasive cheatgrass wastelands, increasing the likelihood of unnaturally
frequent and destructive wildfires in sage-grouse habitat that cost
millions of dollars annually to fight.

“Failing to require immediate reforms to livestock grazing abuses just
presses ‘pause’ on necessary protections and will only benefit special
interests and harm the bird,” said Greta Anderson of Western Watersheds
Project. “Grazing not only affects the vegetation that sage-grouse need for
cover, but also accelerates cheatgrass invasions and stokes the cycle of
unnaturally frequent wildfires across sage-grouse range.”

“It’s crazy that the state with the most healthy population of sage-grouse
got the greatest loopholes for oil and gas,” said Todd Tucci, an attorney
with Advocates for the West representing the groups.

Scientists consider the greater sage-grouse an indicator species, meaning
they serve as bellwethers of broader ecosystem health. Declines in grouse
populations signal broader land-health problems that threaten up to 350
species of native wildlife that call the Sagebrush Sea ecosystem home.

“When you look at the plans the pattern of special interest give-aways
becomes clear,” said Randi Spivak of the Center for Biological Diversity.
“This issue is about far more than the sage-grouse. It’s about the iconic
Sagebrush Sea, hundreds of other species, and recreation opportunities for
this and future generations.”

The legal challenge encompasses all 14 of the recently adopted sage-grouse
plan amendments and revisions plus the Lander Resource Management Plan,
which the Bureau of Land Management finalized in 2014.

Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological
Diversity and Prairie Hills Audubon Society are represented in the case by
attorneys from Advocates for the West.

###

A copy of today's complaint is available online here.
<http://cts.vresp.com/c/?WesternWatershedsPro/d58a751e1a/40ff770b14/0a5292c344>
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