[MCN] Attacking the special-interest loopholes in federal sage grouse plans

Matthew Koehler mattykoehler at gmail.com
Tue Mar 15 10:51:13 EDT 2016


Last fall some were claiming that 'collaboration' lead to a supposed
'historic victory' for Sage Grouse and their habitat. Erik Molvar, with
WildEarth Guardians has the rest of the story.

"In the end, the two states that completed collaborative processes for sage
grouse — Wyoming and Colorado — ended up with the weakest federal plans.
It's a lesson for conservationists everywhere."

Also, coming off the heals of the Oregon Standoff by the Bundy Militia and
others, pay particular attention to how "The Bureau of Land Management is
continuing to rubber-stamp a business-as-usual approach to livestock
grazing in sage grouse habitats that ignores the habitat protections
promised in the plans."

Please take a moment and contact Montana's Congressional delegation and let
them know your views on the many loopholes contained in the sage grouse
plans: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Thanks.


*Attacking the special-interest loopholes in federal sage grouse plans*

By Erik Molvar, contributor

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/272862-attacking-the-special-interest-loopholes-in-federal

When politics trumps science and the law, enriching industry's coffers at
the expense of imperiled wildlife, it's our job as conservationists to
uphold the law and the public trust. That's exactly what happened last week
when conservation groups filed suit to ensure that the charismatic dancing
sage grouse has a fighting chance at survival.

Last September, after years of planning, the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) unveiled sage grouse plans that were filled with so many
special-interest loopholes, you'd have thought the oil and livestock
industries wrote them.

It wasn't always that way. Federal sage grouse planning started out with
the best of intentions. In fact, the agencies designated large stretches of
the Sagebrush Sea as priority habitats for sage grouse, and updated
management plans to increase habitat protections in these areas.

The BLM even convened a panel of sage grouse experts to review the science
on problems facing sage grouse and their habitats, and that panel did a
decent job of setting standards based on the science, particularly for
industrial uses. But then politics set in.

While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified "priority areas for
conservation" that are "essential for sage-grouse conservation," the
land-use agencies whittled away at those habitatsin California, Utah, Idaho
and Nevada, giving a much lower level of protection to millions of acres of
the most important habitats. Nevada was the most extreme — some 47 percent
of these habitats were denied "priority" status in the federal plans,
leaving more than 9 million acres of prime habitats with only token
protections.

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that sage grouse avoid tall
structures such as powerlines because they amplify predation from hawks and
eagles that roost on the towers, the BLM undermined protections from
powerlines by exempting every single major transmission project under
consideration by the agency.

The BLM's experts recommended closing priority habitats entirely to future
mineral leasing and claims of all kinds. Yet the new plans allow future oil
and gas leasing — the biggest threat — in all of Wyoming, the stronghold
for sage grouse, and where the threats from drilling are most extreme.

In Wyoming, the "no surface occupancy" provisions apply only within 0.6
mile of sage grouse leks (unique spots where grouse return to dance and
mate each year). This leaves 98 percent of nesting habitat open to roads
and drilling sites, and allows industrial disturbance close enough to
interrupt the mating dance of breeding birds on the lek.

The experts recommend a limit of 3 percent surface disturbance in key
habitats. In most states, that limit applies, just like the science says.
But in Wyoming, the limit is boosted to 5 percent, almost twice as much,
and enough to allow conventional, full-field oil and gas fields to be built
inside sage grouse priority areas. And the feds promised Montana they would
lower federal standards to 5 percent in that state too, if only Montana
would adopt a state plan similar to Wyoming's industry-friendly plan.

In 2013, a scientific study modeled the expected levels of development
across Wyoming, based on the assumption that the state's core area plan
would be implemented rigorously and without exception. The study predicted
a further 9 percent population decline in the short-term, and a 15 percent
decline over the long-term, for Wyoming's sage grouse populations, if the
plan's protections were applied rigorously. So far, however, exceptions are
easy to come by in Wyoming.

In the Great Basin states, livestock grazing has converted massive tracts
of pristine habitat to cheatgrass, an invasive weed that burns frequently,
causing range fires that can wipe out hundreds of thousands of acres of
sage grouse habitat for up to a century. It's the single biggest problem
sage grouse face in the region. The new plans do include some targets that
might help curb the overgrazing that leads to cheatgrass spread.

But according to analysis by Western Watersheds Project, of 964 grazing
permits approved rangewide since the new sage grouse plans were adopted,
BLM renewed some 84 percent of livestock grazing without incorporating the
new sage grouse protections. As Greta Anderson of Western Watersheds
Project observed, "The BLM is continuing to rubber-stamp a
business-as-usual approach to livestock grazing in sage grouse habitats
that ignores the habitat protections promised in the plans."

Federal officials have been quick to trumpet the new sage grouse plans as a
model in collaboration. And while Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell
couldn't schedule enough photo ops with ranchers or closed-door meetings
with Western governors, she repeatedly refused to meet with the leading
sage grouse conservation groups. In the end, the two states that completed
collaborative processes for sage grouse — Wyoming and Colorado — ended up
with the weakest federal plans. It's a lesson for conservationists
everywhere.

Scientists estimate North America's original sage grouse population at 16
million birds. In 1886, the famous naturalist George Bird Grinnell recorded
an enormous flock of sage grouse in Bates Hole, Wyo.: "Looking up from the
tent at the edge of the bluff above us, we could see projecting over it the
heads of hundreds of the birds, and, as those standing there took flight,
others stepped forward to occupy their places," Grinnell wrote. "The number
of Grouse which flew over the camp reminded me of the old time flights of
Passenger Pigeons that I used to see when I was a boy. Before long the
narrow valley where the water was, was a moving mass of gray."

No one alive today can remember sage grouse flocks like these. Today's
population numbers a few hundred thousand, having decreased as much as 98
percent from their original levels. And because of the weak plans,
extinction remains a real threat.

Adopting federal plans that designate priority habitats for protection
across 10 Western states is all well and good, but it's a disservice to
everyone (not to mention to sage grouse) to manage those priority habitats
for levels of destruction known to destroy sage grouse populations.
Conservationists serious about recovering this charismatic bird have little
choice but to look to the courts for justice for our lands and our
endangered wildlife.

*Molvar is the Sagebrush Sea Campaign Director with WildEarth Guardians, a
nonprofit conservation group working to protect wildlife, wild places, wild
rivers and the health of the American West.*
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