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January 6, 2010 BLM'S NEW SAGE GROUSE POLICY A TINY STEP FORWARD? For oil and gas development in Core Areas, a maximum well density of one well per square mile might (or might not) apply. This measure is grounded in scientific studies of oil and gas impacts statewide. But the density requirement could be weakened outside sage grouse habitats, and could be eliminated entirely if the Wyoming Game and Fish Department agrees to a waiver. Core Areas would get a "No Surface Occupancy" buffer of 0.6 mile around sage grouse lek (or strutting) sites, and largely meaningless timing stipulations; the Holloran study on oil and gas impacts on sage grouse in the Pinedale Anticline and Jonah Fields indicates that siting a well within 1.9 miles of a lek site significantly reduces breeding populations. Meanwhile, outside of Core Areas, the lek buffer is an even smaller quarter mile, with the minimally effective limitations on timing of drilling and construction (but not gas production) activities. At the leasing stage, if a proposed lease inside a Core Area is found to be sage grouse habitat, and also the BLM's minerals staff decides that there is no possibility of oil and gas being drained from under federal lands from wells on nearby private lands, the parcel is recommended for withdrawal. In other cases, a new lease requirement will be added to implement the project-stage strategy outlined above. While some conservation groups are exuberant in their praise of the new sage grouse measures, the actual gains are questionable. The BLM will have the opportunity to use this new framework to make oil and gas development more compatible with sage grouse conservation, but the new measures by no means guarantee that adequate sage grouse conservation will occur, even for grouse lucky enough to live inside the politically derived confines of Core Areas. The bottom line is that the BLM had a golden opportunity to put in place hard-and-fast conservation measures for sage grouse, and they chose not to seize this opportunity, leaving the precarious fate of sage grouse across Wyoming to the whims of future land management decisions.
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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073 (307) 742-7978 - carmi@voiceforthewild.org |