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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance * Natural Resources Defense Council * Western Watersheds Project NEWS RELEASE May 22, 2009 Conservation Groups Challenge Atlantic Rim
WASHINGTON – A coalition of conservation groups have appealed a lower court ruling that upheld a 2,000-well Atlantic Rim coalbed methane development. The case challenges inadequate sage grouse protections, scientifically unsound air quality analysis, and the Bureau of Land Management’s failure to involve the public in the site-specific environmental review of pods of coalbed methane wells, which can include 10 to 30 wells. “The Atlantic Rim Project area has one of the largest intact sage-grouse populations in the country,” said Barbara Parsons, a member of the South-Central Wyoming Sage Grouse Local Working Group. “There have been intensive local efforts to recover the sage grouse to make listing unnecessary. And yet, at the same time, the BLM is permitting ill-advised and intensive industrialization under the Atlantic Rim project, moving the bird toward the Endangered Species list.” The suit also challenges the BLM’s use of obsolete air quality models that were acknowledged to be ineffective by the scientists who constructed them at the time. Bruce Pendery, program director with the Wyoming Outdoor Council, said along with worries for the area’s sage grouse and other wildlife populations, the Outdoor Council has serious concerns for the region’s air quality. “We felt we needed to pursue an appeal of this decision in order to ensure the important resources in the area, including the air, are adequately protected,” Pendery said. “We do not believe the BLM has done that — particularly the implementation of the project.” Federal land managers need to consider the big picture, consider the cumulative impacts of development on a given landscape or region, rather than looking at oil and gas drilling on a project-by-project, lease-by-lease or even well-by-well basis, Pendery said. “One of the key problems with this project was that the BLM never created a plan to develop the coalbed methane field, and as a result, they couldn’t estimate how heavily the various scenarios were going to impact populations of sage grouse, big game, and hawks and eagles,” added Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “But then, when the BLM went back to do the site-specific planning for individual pods of coalbed methane wells that they should have done before approving the project, they didn’t allow any public review of impacts and alternatives.” Mike Evans, who lives outside of Saratoga and who has hunted elk in the Atlantic Rim area for years, said some of the biggest problems associated with the oil and gas development have to do with the construction of so many new roads in an area so rich with big game. “It’s not a good situation,” Evans said. “There’s getting to be lots and lots of roads. More all the time, so that’s a big concern.” Along with the fragmentation of the habitat, the elk in the region are also getting easier to kill because hunters can now patrol so much of the area without much difficulty on all-terrain vehicles. “Elk will keep getting easier to kill and easier to access,” he said. “I don’t know if the Game and Fish Department will reduce the permits. And I don’t know what they’re going to do with all those roads they’re going to build. I don’t know how they’re ever going to reclaim it.” Once roads are built it’s nearly impossible to close them, Evans said, because even though you tell people not to use them, they still do. “It’s getting so people don’t hunt anymore — they just drive around,” he said. “We’ve got no choice but to appeal this,” said Sharon Buccino, Director of the Land and Wildlife Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the lead attorney representing the groups in court. “The district court simply did not address the key issues and opened the door to massive destruction of wildlife habitat and wild lands.” The challenge is being brought by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Natural Resource Defense Council, Western Watersheds Project, Wyoming Outdoor Council, and Wyoming Wilderness Association
Contact information:
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Biodiversity Conservation Alliance P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073 (307) 742-7978 - carmi@voiceforthewild.org |