Nick Snow
Washington Editor
Many Rocky Mountain producers already were aware of the sage grouse's potential impact on their operations when the US Department of the Interior released a breeding density map on Nov. 23 showing where the ground-dwelling wild bird is most prolific.
Several identified sites are in major energy production regions. They are most heavily concentrated in Wyoming and Montana, but there also are several in eastern Utah and western Colorado.
The US Bureau of Land Management prepared the map in coordination with the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, DOI's Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Mapping began in March, when US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar announced FWS's finding that the sage grouse warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act, but that its listing was precluded to address higher-priority species first.
"This mapping effort will help other federal and state agencies and BLM as it carries out its multiple-use mandate," BLM Director Robert V. Abbey said as the map was released. "We are confident that all activities can be managed to be compatible with conservation of the sage grouse and its habitat."
Rockies producers assuredly will be interested, a Denver lawyer specializing in land, wildlife, and water law told OGJ on Nov. 24.
'Some real concern'
"There has been some real concern how BLM is going to manage the warranted-but-precluded finding of the sage grouse," said Kent Holsinger, a principal at Holsinger Law LLC. "They're a candidate species, which means FWS will assess whether they should be excluded each year. In the meantime, state offices in Wyoming and Colorado have been issuing their own guidelines."
Producers' activities that potentially affect the bird's communal breeding grounds, known as leks, already are limited. Holsinger said that the new map discusses buffers with a 3-5 mile radius. "I'm not sure what the agencies are going to do about this, but if you start drawing buffers of that magnitude around leks, oil and gas producers won't have much room," he said.
He said that Wyoming's regulations are the heaviest: Winter restrictions run from Nov. 14 to Mar. 14, limits on some nights go from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., and only one disturbance is allowed per 640 acres in some core areas. Colorado's policy doesn't seem as prescriptive, although agency conferral questions have arisen, he indicated.
Holsinger planned to circulate BLM's new map among his clients. "I've heard several folks express concern about how long it's taking to get permits through BLM currently," he told OGJ. "Adding to the complexity through the sage grouse could certainly add more time to the delays and mitigations."
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