Backers of the proposed TransWest Express electricity transmission project are trying to accomplish something that has stymied developers in recent years: build a power line that crosses multiple state boundaries and bisects hundreds of miles of federal and private property.
The goal is to carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of mostly wind-generated electricity from planned wind farms in southwest Wyoming to large metropolitan areas in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona, said Kara Choquette, a project spokeswoman. The line is expected to come into service in 2015.
But while the $3 billion TransWest Express line and a handful of other major transmission projects planned for Western states are critical to spurring development of renewable energy nationwide, developers of such lines are becoming increasingly tangled in a web of siting and permitting issues that threaten to slow or stop renewables development altogether.
|
| The planned TransWest Express transmission project will rely on steel lattice towers to hoist 600-kilovolt lines into the air along its 725-mile route from Wyoming to Nevada. Photo courtesy of DOE. |
And despite concerted efforts by TransWest Express LLC, a subsidiary of Denver-based Anschutz Corp., to address such concerns proactively, the project will not avoid hot-button issues as it proceeds from the early design stages to a more formalized plan that will be subject to scrutiny by state and federal agencies.
Environmentalists, for example, are concerned that several routes under consideration by the Bureau of Land Management would run the line through prime sage grouse breeding grounds in Wyoming and Utah, and desert tortoise habitat in Nevada. And in Colorado and Utah, the line would encroach on wilderness-quality BLM lands, advocates say, potentially placing the project at odds with the Interior Department's new "wild lands" policy that stresses conservation of the most pristine federal lands.
These competing interests are coming to play as BLM begins an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the project that should establish the best route for the 725-mile-long power line.
BLM, which is developing the EIS in partnership with the Energy Department's Western Area Power Administration, is accepting public scoping comments on the project through April 4. Three public forums this week in Wyoming are the last of 23 hearings held in the four states the line would cross.
"We'd like to work together to find ways to make this work," said Mike Chiropolos, the lands program director for Western Resource Advocates in Boulder, Colo.
"The long-term solution to our energy issues are clean energy solutions," he added. "The project proponents here are doing a good job at being open-minded, but there's going to be some tough choices and trade-offs associated with this project."
Sharon Knowlton, the BLM project manager overseeing the project, said the agency and TransWest Express are trying wherever possible to route the line along existing transmission corridors and within the federally designated West-wide Energy Corridor -- a 6,000-mile right-of-way for electricity, oil, natural gas and hydrogen projects that crosses federal lands in 11 states.
While 495 miles of the TransWest route would cross lands managed by BLM, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Reclamation, an estimated 230 miles would bisect private land outside the energy corridor, Knowlton said.
"You just cannot get from Wyoming to southern Nevada without crossing some sensitive areas," she said. "Our job is to make wise decisions and attempt to impact resources where we can mitigate."
The 600-kilovolt line, to be supported by steel-lattice towers standing as high as 180 feet, would be the second-largest direct current power line in the country. At full capacity, the line is expected to carry enough electricity to meet growing power demand as far away as San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
At its northern end, the line is expected to provide a major boon to wind power development in rural south-central Wyoming by providing a sure-fire means to move wind power to major load centers.
Among the beneficiaries would be the proposed 1,000-turbine Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project in Carbon County, Wyo., which is projected to generate enough electricity to power about 800,000 homes. The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project, currently under review by BLM, is also being spearheaded by Anschutz Corp.
Wyoming ranks 10th nationwide for total installed wind power capacity at 1,400 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association. But the state's generation potential is significantly higher, at an estimated 7,800 megawatts -- enough to power 3.1 million homes.
"A very large number of projects out there are trying to get their power out on the grid and the transmission capacity is just not there right now," said Michael Goggin, AWEA's manager of transmission policy in Washington, D.C.
|
| The TransWest Express transmission project is expected to carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of electricity from south-central Wyoming to southern Nevada, where it will be used to power urban centers such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. Map courtesy of TransWest Express LLC. |
The TransWest project will help resolve that issue, said Choquette, the company spokeswoman. "Wyoming has such tremendous wind energy resources," she said, "but that wind is going to go to waste if we don't get it to the people who need it."
One of TransWest's most immediate development obstacles is the greater sage grouse, a candidate species for federal Endangered Species Act protection. Wyoming is home to about half of the world's remaining sage grouse, and federal and state leaders in Wyoming and neighboring states have worked tirelessly to preserve those that remain, mostly by steering development away from the most sensitive habitat areas.
Former Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), who left office in January, last year issued an executive order charting out a transmission corridor to aid in the siting of power lines away from state-designated "core sage grouse areas" (Land Letter, Aug. 26, 2010).
The order could affect TransWest Express and several other large transmission line projects, including the $2 billion Gateway West project proposed by Rocky Mountain Power and Idaho Power. That line, which has been stalled in the permitting process for several years, would stretch 1,150 miles across southern Wyoming and Idaho and carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of mostly wind power to customers in California and Nevada.
Choquette said TransWest Express is developing a conservation plan for sage grouse and is working on other conservation measures to reduce or mitigate impacts to other sensitive species, including raptors. BLM's Knowlton said sage grouse preservation would be addressed in the EIS for the project.
The EIS also will examine the project's impact to wilderness-quality lands and the issue of compliance with the new wild lands policy, Knowlton said.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's Dec. 22, 2010, executive order instructed BLM field offices to identify parcels with wilderness characteristics and to consider designating them as wild lands that are off-limits to development. BLM last month issued final guidance documents on the wild lands order that, among other things, instruct field managers to place a high priority on the preservation of lands with wilderness characteristics.
Knowlton said the agency does not yet know how much potential wilderness areas could be impacted.
But environmental groups who have studied the proposed route alternatives say there are a number of areas with wilderness-quality lands that could be impacted by the line.
David Garbett, a staff attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in Salt Lake City, said the leading proposal under consideration would at least "clip" areas being considered for wilderness or that already are protected, including the Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area on the state's southwest side that contains good desert tortoise habitat. Other alternatives would also bisect areas with wilderness characteristics, Garbett said.
"How exactly the wild lands issue will play out remains to be seen," he said.
Sasha Nelson, northwest organizer with the Colorado Environmental Coalition, said that during a recent public meeting she pointed to a map showing how one of the proposed routes would take the power line through a wilderness study area (WSA) in northwest Colorado.
Nelson said officials with both BLM and the company were surprised by the WSA and pledged to avoid that area. While Nelson said she was encouraged by planners' commitments to avoid the area, she was "concerned they didn't already know it was there."
She said her group wants BLM to consider routing the power line out of Colorado altogether. But even if they do not, Nelson said she believes TransWest Express officials are "truly sincere about taking on our concerns."
She added: "It seems like everybody is really willing to work collaboratively to promote green, renewable energy. We're trying to provide the best information to them we can, and not just saying, 'No,' but rather, 'Here's the best place to put the line.' "
Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Advertisement
House Republicans criticized Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell this week for overseeing Obama administration policies that they claim restrict economic development and recreation opportunities on public lands.
"Not only do you appear to be failing to manage these resources, you appear to come in [as an] active obstacle to developing them," said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), whose 4th congressional district in northeast California encompasses Modoc, Lassen, Plumas and Tahoe national forests.
|
| Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell defended the agency's budget priorities before the Republican-led House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. Photo courtesy of USFS. |
With climbing gasoline prices threatening the nation's economic recovery, McClintock warned both Tidwell and Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey that if the administration did not alter its policies towards drilling, "people will want heads to roll" (see related story).
Tidwell defended his agency's priorities as a balanced approach to multiple uses on public forests and grasslands in testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
"I am sorry you feel that way," Tidwell replied to McClintock. "I think if you look at the multi-use activities that occur across the national forests and grasslands, you'll see there is a very good balance of our focus on energy production, our focus on recreation and our focus on restoring national forests."
But GOP members pointed to what they see as a growing imbalance between Forest Service priorities.
For example, timber harvests from national forests have decreased from 12 billion board feet in 1980 to about 2.5 billion board feet in 2010. Several lawmakers said the decline in timber harvests has harmed local economies and left forests overgrown and at greater risk of wildfires.
While acknowledging a 40-million-acre backlog in forest thinning projects, Tidwell stressed that the broader reduction in timber harvests from public lands is also linked to changing global economics for wood products and a shift in agency focus from resource extraction to restoration and multiple-use objectives.
Critics also took aim at the Agriculture Department agency's efforts to acquire more land in a time of heightened tension over federal land management practices.
The Forest Service's proposed $5.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2012 is a $178 million decrease from last year's continuing resolution (E&E Daily, March 4). However, the request includes an almost $90 million increase for various land acquisition and conservation programs.
|
| Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) chastized the Forest Service for being an obstacle to developing domestic energy resources and for pushing livestock owners off of federal lands. Photo courtesy of House Natural Resources Committee. |
"We need to start selling trees, we need to start selling properties and not acquiring more," said Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.). "I think your proposal of buying more property is totally irresponsible."
With more than half of the nation's forests under private ownership, Tidwell defended the programs as vital to protect forests. The Forest Legacy Program, for example, has protected more than 2 million acres of forest and open space through conservation easements, which help landowners maintain forests or working ranches.
McClintock also accused the Forest Service of decreasing grazing access on public lands. In an e-mail to Land Letter, the congressman's office noted speeches in which McClintock railed against the Forest Service for revoking grazing permits in the Tahoe National Forest that had been in place for 80 years.
Tidwell responded that vast amounts of Forest Service land are available for livestock grazing, and in fact, many allotments in McClintock's own district are going unused. "We feel grazing is one of the multiple uses we need to maintain," Tidwell said.
McClintock also took issue with the agency's 2005 travel management rule, which prohibits off-highway vehicles beyond designated trails (Land Letter, Aug. 19, 2010). "You are closing off vast amounts of our forests, our public lands, to public access," McClintock said. "I've been flooded by complaints."
In a speech on the House floor in January, McClintock said his office had received more than 500 specific complaints about "Forest Service abuses," including restricting vehicle access to the Plumas National Forest.
Tidwell said the travel management rule provided a consistent, national policy that minimized environmental impacts of off-road vehicles, but recognized the economic importance of the motorized recreation industry.
Advertisement
In what may be the largest opposition campaign yet for a Forest Service travel management plan, hundreds of southwest New Mexico residents, as well as their congressional representative, are pressing the Gila National Forest to abandon its recently unveiled proposal to close 24 percent of its roads and trails.
At a March 5 rally organized by the opposition group Keep Our Forest Open, which attracted more than 700 people on a Saturday afternoon, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) railed against the plan, which he said is another example of the federal government overreaching its authority.
"I'm here today for all of those who have spoken out before but haven't been listened to. I'm here for all the elderly, the disabled, the families ... all those who would lose access to their favorite places to spend time with loved ones," Pearce told attendees at the Silver City, N.M., event, which included off-roading enthusiasts, hunters, tea party activists and others.
"The Forest Service does not under our Constitution have the right to shove these rules down, and we're going to make an issue of it," Pearce added before leading the crowd in a chant of "Keep our forest open, yeah!"
|
| Vehicle tracks along the San Francisco River in the Gila National Forest. Under the Forest Service's new travel management proposal, the river could be closed to motorized access. Photo courtesy of Grant Gourley/Center for Biological Diversity. |
The Silver City rally followed a smaller gathering in the town of Truth or Consequences two days before, during which Pearce said the plan is "an attempt to take away another of our freedoms as Americans."
The Gila draft plan, which includes six alternatives, is the latest in a multi-year, nationwide effort by the Forest Service to rein in off-highway vehicle (OHV) use, which has increased significantly on many national forests. Under the agency's travel management rule, issued by the Bush administration in 2005, all national forests are required to restrict OHV use to designated trails and roads. Currently, motorized recreation is allowed everywhere on the Gila National Forest except in designated wilderness or other protected areas.
The Forest Service's favored plan for the Gila, outlined in a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) released in January, would prohibit cross-country travel, reduce roads in the 3.3-million-acre forest from 4,604 to 3,343 miles, and increase trails from 16 to 182 miles.
Officials say the alternative is a fair compromise that would balance natural resource protection and motorized access. But the plan's increasingly vocal critics, thousands of whom submitted comments on the draft EIS, say the forest's current travel policies should not be changed.
"We really feel like this is an excessive plan, and we're very much opposed to it," said Mike Skidmore, who chairs the board of Keep Our Forest Open. The group formed in mid-January for the sole purpose of fighting the proposal. It wants the service to leave the entire forest open to cross-country travel.
Skidmore, whose home in Truth or Consequences is about an hour's drive from the forest, said that in his experience OHV users do not cause significant damage to forest resources, and he questioned the need for the proposed restrictions.
"I've been going to the forest for 27 years, and I've never seen anyone abusing the forest," he said. "I'd like to see those specific sites. I really feel it's a disservice to the public to punish everyone for the actions of a few."
Of particular concern to Skidmore are proposed prohibitions on driving motorized vehicles to the edge of streams, and new restrictions on dispersed camping. About 809 miles of streambank would no longer be available to motorized camping, and the Forest Service's chosen alternative calls for 158 fewer stream crossings to help protect aquatic habitat for species like the spike dace and loach minnow, which are both on the Endangered Species List.
"We feel like we're the stewards of the land, we love it, we love seeing the wildlife," Skidmore said. "We're not out there to damage the forest -- we want to take care of it. It seems like the Forest Service is saying it's the king's forest, and we're going to shut you out. We feel like we've been walked on, run over and ignored."
Two county commissions, representing Grant and Catron counties, have thrown their support behind the draft EIS's "no action" alternative, which would keep the current travel policy in place.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, are urging the agency to abandon its proposed action in favor of another alternative that would be even more protective of the forest's natural resources.
"I don't think the Forest Service went far enough," said Cyndi Tuell of the Center for Biological Diversity. "There are plenty of roads that are of high risk to resources that they left on the ground."
If the agency closed additional roads, it would free up money to repair roads that are left open, she added, noting that the Forest Service has estimated it can only afford to maintain about 22 percent of the Gila's roads. A greater focus on fewer roads would benefit all forms of motorized recreation, she said.
"It's actually a way to make sure everyone has access to the forest," Tuell said, adding that without maintenance, roads and trails that see regular traffic eventually become unusable.
As for Pearce's criticisms, Tuell said the congressman does not appear to understand how the plan would benefit his constituents. The new restrictions would help protect the watershed that provides drinking water for residents of Silver City and other communities fringing the forest, she said.
"The Forest Service recognizes we have far too many roads on the ground and that they are destroying our watershed," she said. "It would be really great if we could get our congressman to understand that."
Supporters of an alternative that calls for slightly more closures than the Forest Service's favored proposal held their own rally March 4, drawing about 80 people.
The Center for Biological Diversity is urging the agency to adopt the most restrictive alternative in the draft EIS, which would allow 2,300 miles of roads and trails to remain open.
Groups like Keep our Forest Open, however, are exerting equal -- if not greater -- pressure on the Forest Service to choose the "no action" alternative.
By law, all EISs must include the option of continuing the status quo, but in this case it is not really an option because doing nothing would leave the Gila out of compliance with the agency's overarching travel management rule.
Forest Service officials were responding to a wildfire and unavailable to comment. But in the draft EIS, the agency notes that the no-action alternative "would not meet the requirements of the travel management rule to prohibit motor vehicle use off the designated system."
Nevertheless, Skidmore said his group plans to sue the agency if it does not choose the "no action" option when it issues the final plan.
The Gila National Forest -- the sixth-largest national forest in the continental United States -- is one of the most "remote and least developed" federal forests, according to the Forest Service. It is home to the first designated wilderness area, established in 1924 -- 40 years before Congress passed the Wilderness Act -- and it helped shape pioneering conservationist Aldo Leopold's "land ethic," during his tenure as a Forest Service ranger there in the early 20th century (Land Letter, Feb. 17).
In recent decades, the Gila National Forest has been a lightning rod for many of the Forest Service's thorniest issues, including gray wolf reintroduction, grazing and OHV use (Land Letter, March 18, 2010).
The Forest Service's comment period for the draft EIS ended this week. Agency officials will now review those comments and decide whether to make any changes to the proposal before issuing a final plan in a few months.
Click here to read a Forest Service comparison of the alternatives in the draft EIS.
Reese writes from Santa Fe, N.M.
Back to Land Letter index page.
This story first appeared in E&ENews PM.
A federal judge has ruled that the Tongass National Forest should not be exempted from the Forest Service rule that prevents most road construction and timber harvesting in remote wooded areas.
The ruling, issued last week, was a win for environmentalists who opposed the 2003 decision by the George W. Bush administration to exclude the Tongass, the largest national forest, from the Clinton-era Roadless Area Conservation Rule designed to conserve pristine forests.
|
| A federal judge's ruling that the Tongass National Forest cannot be exempted from the Forest Service's rule on roadless areas could bode well for the long-term preservation of the forest's expansive wildlands. Photo courtesy of USFS. |
The environmental plaintiffs, including Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council, claimed the government had violated the National Environmental Policy Act and that the decision was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act.
U.S. District Judge John Sedwick of the District of Alaska ruled Friday that the government had violated the Administrative Procedure Act, meaning he did not have to reach the NEPA issue.
The reasons given by the Forest Service for exempting Tongass from the roadless rule were "implausible, contrary to evidence in the record" and at odds with previous rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Sedwick wrote.
The government had argued, among other things, that the roadless rule could lead to the loss of 800 jobs and place limits on the ability of communities in southeast Alaska on getting access to roads and utilities.
Sedwick rejected those claims, saying the government did not provide evidence on how or why jobs would be lost or "any other potential negative economic impacts."
The judge did not, however, rule on whether three timber sales authorized by the exemption should be allowed to go ahead. He said that was a decision for the secretary of the Agriculture Department.
Karla Dutton, the Alaska director for Defenders of Wildlife, described the ruling as a "wise decision" that shows there is "much more to be gained from protecting the Tongass than plundering it."
Among those dismayed at the decision was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
The decision "will make it all the more difficult for the few remaining timber operations that depend on the Tongass and the Forest Service to survive," Murkowski said. "I intend to do every thing I can to limit this damage."
Click here to read the ruling.
Back to Land Letter index page.
A key player in the future viability of whitebark pine trees -- the Clark's nutcracker -- is performing effectively at its job distributing new seeds only 15 percent of the time, according to new research.
But whether the tree, which clings to rocky soils above the snow line of the northern Rockies, Cascades and Sierra Nevada, can survive with such a low germination rate remains in question.
Experts believe that whitebark pine, ravaged by blister rust and bark beetles, is on the brink of extinction with declines of as much as 90 percent across significant parts of its range (Land Letter, Dec. 9, 2010).
|
| Researchers fitted Clark's nutcrackers with radio transmitters to study their role in dispersing whitebark pine seeds in the Olympic and Cascade mountains. Photo courtesy of Teresa Lorenz. |
"But it only takes a few to germinate to keep things going," said Martin Raphael, a Forest Service wildlife ecologist who oversaw the study conducted in the Cascades and Olympic Mountains of Washington. "So these rare events where they happen to be cached in the appropriate environmental situation, that still happens enough to allow whitebark pine seeds to regenerate."
The nutcracker's role in whitebark pine regeneration is simple but vitally important. The bird pries open whitebark cones, which do not open otherwise, and disperses the seeds by burying them in small underground stashes where new trees can germinate and take root.
However, the research by the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station shows that the nutcrackers stash most of the seeds in lower elevation areas unsuitable for germination.
Questions about the nutcracker's seed dispersion habits drew the attention of Teresa Lorenz as a graduate student at Utah State University. From 2006 to 2009, Lorenz tracked 12 Clark's nutcrackers outfitted with radio transmitters and discovered that the birds were carrying the majority of the whitebark seeds to lower elevation areas more suitable for ponderosa pine.
"You would expect almost all seeds don't stand a chance, so effectiveness might not be very high naturally," said Lorenz, who is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho. "[But] it was lower than I suspected."
But there were a few surprises. Notably, telemetry tracking revealed the birds fly up to 20 miles away from their nests to collect seeds, much farther than the previously recorded 8 miles. Also, the research showed that nutcrackers fly as many as five hours a day, stopping on ridges to collect seeds.
"It's as if they're going to the grocery store," Lorenz said in Science Findings, a Pacific Northwest Research Station publication. "They're going out and buying their groceries and bringing them home. They're not living where the groceries are."
The broad dispersal of whitebark seeds facilitates genetic mixing between different pine species. That could aid whitebark's chances for survival by producing multiple genetic variations, one of which might have the right characteristics to adapt to a changing environment.
Lorenz also found the nutcrackers in the study did not primarily feed on whitebark pine seeds; rather, they stocked up on ponderosa pine seeds, which were more abundant in the study area.
This means forest managers must take ponderosa pine's effect on the ecosystem into account when developing conservation measures for whitebark pine, Raphael said, adding that decisions to remove competing species should be carefully weighed against the value of maintaining a mixture of species.
"You wouldn't want to start getting rid of ponderosa pine and trying to favor whitebark pine because that would probably cause nutcrackers to abandon the site," he said.
Currently, ponderosa is faring better than whitebark, but both species are in danger of being displaced by fir trees that have spread in the absence of fire. To restore a balance between species, forest managers might restore a natural fire cycle to roll back the fir encroachment, Raphael said. This would help the ponderosa to thrive, which would support the nutcrackers, and thus whitebark pine.
Lorenz cautioned more research is needed to confirm the nutcracker's contribution to whitebark pine seed dispersal. But with such a low effectiveness rate, Lorenz wondered if there might be other helpers that play a vital role in the tree's survival.
Squirrels, chipmunks and mice have been documented stealing seeds from bird caches and storing them in areas suitable for propagation with other pine species. For her doctoral research, Lorenz plans to bury whitebark pine seeds and observe how much the thieves contribute to dispersal and propagation.
"I think it is easy to oversimplify the mutualism and focus on nutcrackers and whitebark pine, but this may not lead to effective restoration for whitebark pine," Lorenz said.
She also plans to supplement the rodents' natural food supply to see whether they leave more whitebark seeds on the ground, increasing their chances of regeneration. While a very experimental idea, such measures could provide another restoration tool for whitebark, she said.
Back to Land Letter index page.
A voluntary agreement by a Houston-based energy company to scale back a drilling project in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and win public support for the proposal appears to have galvanized opposition to it.
The Forest Service has received nearly 40,000 written comments since it released a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in December of Plains Exploration & Production Co.'s proposal to drill as many as 136 natural gas wells on 17 well pads across a roughly 20,000-acre section of the southwest Wyoming national forest. The public comment period ends on Friday.
A day after the draft EIS was unveiled, PXP and two advocacy groups -- the Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and the Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association -- announced they had negotiated an agreement in which the company could drill the wells but would not apply for any additional drilling permits, regardless of the volume of natural gas discovered in the region, and pay more than $6 million to protect wildlife habitat and monitor air and water quality in the area (Land Letter, Dec. 16, 2010).
|
| Despite agreements to leave 20,000 acres of its lease holdings in the Wyoming Range untouched, Texas-based Plains Exploration & Production Co. continues to face opposition to its proposal to drill for natural gas in the northwest Wyoming area. Photo courtesy of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. |
PXP also agreed to permanently remove from drilling 28,240 acres inside the Bridger-Teton where the company has a valid drilling lease west and north of the Hoback River and to set aside a 4,000-acre corridor for big-game migration and livestock grazing.
PXP hoped the agreement would demonstrate its intent to carry out the drilling project in an environmentally friendly manner that is respectful of the pristine Wyoming Range region; the outdoors groups believed the agreement was the best deal possible, noting that PXP has valid federal leases to drill on the forest and is under no obligation to retire leases or fund wildlife habitat restoration projects.
But the agreement has drawn widespread derision from national and regional environmental groups, some of whom contend the terms of the agreement do not do much to protect the area and do not require the company to make any great sacrifices.
In a Dec. 21, 2010, letter to the Forest Service, a coalition of environmental groups that included Western Resource Advocates and the Wyoming Outdoor Council warned that PXP's pledge to limit drilling activity in the forest is not enough by itself to safeguard wildlife that are already suffering declines from nearby energy development (Greenwire, Dec. 22, 2010).
"Most of the mitigation things they agreed to, with the exception of the lease retirement, were restrictions the Forest Service could have imposed without the agreement," said Dan Smitherman, a spokesman for Citizens for the Wyoming Range, a coalition of residents and business owners opposed to the drilling proposal whose members include Wyoming state Rep. Keith Gingery (R).
Scott Winters, a PXP spokesman in Houston, said in an e-mailed statement that the company "is sensitive to community concerns," and that is why it has committed to a suite of initiatives to protect the region.
Gary Amerine, vice president of the Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association and one of the key negotiators of the agreement, said PXP could easily have moved forward with the project without retiring the leases or agreeing to fund wildlife habitat protection or water quality monitoring to safeguard groundwater and the Hoback River.
"I've felt all along that if we could get roughly half the leases they held donated or retired, and perhaps also get some mitigation funds, I'd be happy. And we got those things," Amerine said. "I think, in my mind, we got the best deal we could possibly hope for."
The agreement, negotiated over a two-year period with input from the Wyoming governor's office and state regulators, lays out a number of mitigation measures to protect forest resources, including restricting construction and operation activity in crucial winter range for moose between November and April, and elk calving areas between May and June. But it does not bind the Forest Service to participate or take any particular action.
Still, the Forest Service plans to adopt a number of the terms in the agreement into its final EIS, which is expected to be released this summer, said Bridger-Teton Forest Supervisor Jacque Buchanan.
"There were definitely some good things in there, some things I could not require [PXP] to do," Buchanan said, referring to the company's agreement to retire 28,240 acres worth of leases. "What we need to concentrate on, if this thing moves forward, is making it as environmentally friendly as possible. That's my goal."
But opponents are not giving up.
The Citizens for the Wyoming Range released a bulletin this week urging opponents to the drilling proposal to submit comments to the Forest Service by the deadline and highlighting the potential environmental impacts if drilling is allowed.
One major concern cited by critics is the possibility, discussed in the draft EIS, that the company will use hydraulic fracturing, a long-established industry practice that involves injecting a mixture of water and chemicals to loosen oil and gas deposits trapped inside tight formations. U.S. EPA is currently conducting a two-year study to determine whether the practice, also known as fracking, is a threat to drinking water supplies.
Smitherman, the Citizens for the Wyoming Range spokesman, said members are very concerned about fracking chemicals contaminating the aquifer that supplies drinking water to the region, as well as pollution to the Hoback River, which is part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
He said that if the Forest Service authorizes the PXP drilling project, it should prohibit the company from using hydraulic fracturing until EPA concludes its study.
That is not likely, said Buchanan, who notes that fracking "is an accepted industry tool that's being used across the country. It's not illegal."
Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey said this week after a House hearing on BLM's 2012 budget request that fracking is not a safety threat to human health or public lands (see related story).
"We have not seen evidence of any adverse effects as a result of the use of the chemicals that are a part of that fracking technology," Abbey said.
Winters, the PXP spokesman, said in his e-mail that the company "is committed to utilizing green completion techniques" to ensure hydraulic fracturing is as safe as possible.
"A minimal amount of chemicals will be used as part of the fracturing process," he wrote, "and constant monitoring will be conducted during the drilling phase to ensure the drilling and completion operations are conducted safely and in accordance with state and federal law."
Smitherman and others say they hope the sheer volume of comments, many of which opposed the project, will convince the Forest Service to kill it.
"We'd hope the Forest Service will indicate to PXP that it will be difficult to drill in that area," Smitherman said. "But all we can do is make our comments and hope that the Forest Service will do the right thing."
Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Back to Land Letter index page.
This story first appeared in Greenwire.
Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey this week told House lawmakers he will defend the right of oil and gas leaseholders on public lands as he implements new management reforms and a secretarial order to protect roadless lands.
At a hearing before a House Natural Resources subcommittee, Abbey defended his agency's $1.13 billion budget request for fiscal 2012 -- a 1 percent increase over current funding -- and assured Republican critics that his agency's "wild lands" order would not be used to lock up acres leased for oil and gas development.
|
| Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey faced off against congressional critics over his agency's budget priorities. Photo courtesy of BLM. |
Abbey also said BLM's oil and gas leasing reforms finalized last May will help reduce the number of protests against lease sales and offer greater certainty to industry.
Abbey was responding to questions from Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) over whether he would defend the property rights of oil and gas leaseholders in spite of an increasing number of protests filed by environmental groups in the West.
"Buyers are given a property right that the government is sworn to protect," Broun said. He asked Abbey whether BLM was obligated to issue leases within 60 days of their sale, as prescribed by the Mineral Leasing Act.
Abbey said the 1920 law provides a "timeframe" for issuing leases but that his agency "routinely has to address protests." Leasing reforms include opportunities for earlier public comment and could include master leasing plans designed to help reduce future protests and provide greater certainty, he said.
In recent years, environmental groups have stalled the vast majority of leases sold on BLM lands in Wyoming and other Western states, drawing a lawsuit last fall from oil and gas companies that argued the agency is stifling development and breaking federal law (E&ENews PM, Oct. 18, 2010).
|
| "Buyers are given a property right that the government is sworn to protect," Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said this week in a budget hearing exchange with BLM Director Bob Abbey. |
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) suggested BLM should be called the "Bureau of Land Closures" and questioned why the agency was taking a new inventory of wilderness-quality lands but not of lands with oil and gas resources.
Abbey reported that recent inventories have found moderate to high mineral potential on 280 million acres of federal mineral estate and that oil and gas production on federal lands increased in 2010 over 2009 levels.
"Many of the companies are making all-time profits," Abbey said, adding that his agency expects oil and gas development on BLM lands will generate $4.3 billion in 2012.
Abbey also reiterated that his agency's wild lands policy would not affect any existing leases and would not be used to block proposed horizontal drilling to reach federal minerals underneath protected lands.
The wild lands proposal, in fact, is not a new policy, said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member on the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee.
"The wild lands policy to me is reinserting in there what former Secretary [Gale] Norton took out," Grijalva said. "That is, the ability to inventory wilderness."
BLM's budget seeks to defray the cost of administering oil and gas inspections through $38 million in new inspection fees as well as a new fee on nonproducing leases and a review of oil and gas royalty rates, which currently stand at 12.5 percent.
Back to Land Letter index page.
This story first appeared in E&ENews PM.
Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey said a common technique used to stimulate oil and natural gas wells in the West is not a safety threat to human health or public lands.
But companies that utilize hydraulic fracturing to loosen oil and gas deposits from tight shale formations should voluntarily disclose the chemicals they use to avoid a public "backlash" and ensure natural gas production is able to expand on federal lands, Abbey said.
"We have not seen evidence of any adverse effects as a result of the use of the chemicals that are a part of that fracking technology," Abbey said Tuesday following a House hearing on BLM's 2012 budget request.
|
| Bureau of Land Management regulators "have not seen evidence" that hydraulic fracturing chemicals pose a threat to human health or public lands, agency Director Bob Abbey said. Photo courtesy of U.S. EPA. |
Abbey said his agency would be hosting three meetings in April in North Dakota, Colorado and Arkansas to discuss the specific technologies used to fracture wells.
BLM also is considering additional regulations that would ensure wells are built to prevent blowouts and keep fracturing fluids from escaping into water supplies or underground aquifers.
"We want to make sure the well integrity is sound," he said, adding that industry already does a "pretty darn good job" using best management practices in constructing wells on public lands.
Top Interior officials, in fact, have been contemplating the disclosure of fracturing chemicals and new well integrity standards as early as August, according to an e-mail exchange obtained by E&E from the state of Wyoming that was part of the state's Freedom of Information Act request.
"Our goal was to [cause a] change in disclosure requirements and advancing/approving state of the art technologies for conducting fracking operations," BLM Deputy Director Mike Pool said in an August 2010 e-mail to Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes.
Pool added BLM was considering what administrative latitude his agency has to condition drilling permits on new standards as opposed to undertaking a formal rulemaking. "Should have everything flushed out and proposed for consideration by September 2," he wrote.
In November, the Interior Department announced it is considering issuing a regulation to require the disclosure of fracturing chemicals. About 90 percent of wells drilled on public lands now require hydraulic fracturing, the agency estimates.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), an outspoken critic of the hydraulic fracturing process who introduced a bill last Congress to require public disclosure of chemicals, Tuesday urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to force companies to disclose chemicals used in drilling on public lands. "This is just common sense," he said.
But Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) cautioned Salazar against imposing any nationwide standards for natural gas drilling, arguing that the technology is best regulated at the state level.
"This is not a new technology," Cole said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday on the Interior budget. "I would be very careful about a national regulatory system when states already regulate this quite well."
Salazar said he believed the future for natural gas was "very bright" but repeated earlier statements that the failure of companies to disclose information on the fracturing process could turn public opinion against the industry.
Fracturing is "the Achilles' heel that could essentially kill natural gas," Salazar said, adding that Interior would like to finalize its hydraulic fracturing regulations within the next several months.
The fracturing process injects large volumes of water at high pressures to create or enlarge fractures and then pumps a "propping agent" into the well to keep the fractures from closing to allow the flow of oil or gas.
The process has been used for more than 50 years but has recently come under attack from environmental groups and public health advocates who argue companies should be forced to disclose the chemicals they inject in case they are spilled, discharged or accidentally migrate into underground sources of drinking water.
Wyoming and Colorado have recently established state regulations that include disclosure of chemicals and new standards to ensure wells are fortified to prevent escape of fluids.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have raised the fracturing issue frequently in recent weeks as Interior and U.S. EPA officials defend the Obama administration's proposed 2012 budget.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson last week told House appropriators that she will not let politics trump science as the agency continues a two-year study into whether hydraulic fracturing is a threat to drinking water supplies (E&ENews PM, March 3).
She was responding to findings in a recent series of New York Times articles highlighting potential risks of radioactive drilling wastewater released to surface waters in Pennsylvania, among other public health risks.
Click here to read the e-mail exchange.
Back to Land Letter index page.
For the past decade, environmental groups have fended off oil and gas drilling on New Mexico's Otero Mesa. Now a new threat has emerged: A Denver-based mining company has filed more than 60 claims to mine rare earth minerals underlying the mesa's unique grasslands.
Since November, Denver-based Geovic Mining Corp. has staked a total of 68 claims on 1,500 acres in the Wind Mountain area of the mesa, said Bill Childress, district manager of the Bureau of Land Management's Las Cruces Field Office, which oversees the lands.
Calls to Geovic officials were not returned by press time.
Environmental groups, sportsmen's groups and other veterans of the battle to protect the mesa are worried that if those claims are developed, Wind Mountain would become unrecognizable.
|
| Otero Mesa, a 1.2-million-acre expanse of rare Chihuahuan grasslands in southern New Mexico, could hold significant deposits of rare earth minerals. Photo courtesy of Nathan Newcomer/New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. |
"Depending on the type of development, you could see the complete removal of Wind Mountain," said Nathan Newcomer, associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.
The 7,280-foot mountain, part of the Cornudas range, is one of the most visited areas on the remote mesa, he said.
"It's a very popular area, because that's where you have thousands of petroglyphs, archaeological sites," he said. "It's basically right in the heart of the area."
Otero Mesa, which encompasses 1.2 million acres in southern New Mexico, also holds extensive groundwater supplies. The Salt Basin Aquifer, which stretches beneath the mesa, is considered to be one of New Mexico's largest untapped freshwater resources.
Rare earths -- 17 related minerals that are used in high-tech products ranging from nuclear weapons to hybrid vehicle batteries -- are in high demand, but the United States currently produces very few of them. According to Geovic's website, demand for cobalt could outstrip current supplies as soon as 2016.
The market has been dominated in recent years by China, whose restrictive export policies have prompted U.S. firms to push harder to identify and mine domestic reserves (Land Letter, July 22, 2010).
Recent studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and others suggest Otero Mesa could hold about 200 million tons of minerals.
A 2010 USGS study found that Wind Mountain, which was formed by a large alkaline intrusion, might hold considerable quantities of rare earth metals, including lanthanum, neodymium and yttrium, although more sampling needs to be done to determine the extent of those deposits. The mountain also may contain "anomalously high concentrations" of beryllium, lithium, nickel, tin and zirconium, according to USGS.
The country's sole rare earth mine, at Mountain Pass, Calif., is an open-pit mine, but it is unclear how an Otero Mesa mine might be developed -- if at all.
BLM's Childress said that so far, the company has only staked claims on the mountain; it has not submitted a mining plan. While the General Mining Act of 1872 gives companies the right to develop staked claims, BLM would conduct an environmental review of any proposed operation, Childress said.
"Whether or not they take that next step remains to be seen," he said, noting that many mining claims never get past the staking stage. "We just don't know a whole lot at this particular stage about the company's intent."
And depending on the design of the operation, BLM could impose certain restrictions to reduce the mine's environmental impact.
"They have to demonstrate that what they're proposing is necessary [to extract the minerals]," he said. "If they're proposing to do some kind of practice that is unnecessary, we can actually disapprove the mining using that technique. But without seeing a mining plan, it's hard to say what kind of stipulations we could put on extraction that would protect all the resources that are out there."
Otero Mesa, whose black grama grasslands provide habitat for hundreds of species, including the endangered northern aplomado falcon, is the largest publicly owned expanse of undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert grassland in the United States. BLM has designated part of the grassland as an area of critical environmental concern, but mining could still occur there, Childress said.
Meanwhile, BLM is working on a new resource management plan for Otero Mesa and surrounding lands after a federal appeals court ruled in 2009 that the current plan did not adequately consider the potential impact of oil and gas drilling on the grassland and underlying groundwater (Land Letter, May 7, 2009). The revised plan will be out early next year, Childress said.
"We're evaluating our options there, still trying to figure out the best way to respond to the ... court decision," he said. In the meantime, BLM is not issuing any new leases on the mesa.
While BLM puts its finishing touches on the new management plan, environmentalists, sportsmen's groups and others are pressing the Obama administration to designate Otero Mesa as a national monument, which would permanently protect the area from most threats. But achieving a new monument designation would not come easily.
One of the proposal's most powerful supporters, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), is no longer in office. The state's new governor, Susana Martinez (R), has not taken a position on the monument proposal, but she has been sympathetic to extractive industries such as oil, gas and mining.
Some ranchers in the area also oppose such protections, which they fear could lead to restrictions on grazing, and local officials are wary of having a new monument designation handed down from Washington, D.C., without local input. Last May, the Otero County Commission passed an ordinance opposing the designation of Otero Mesa as a national monument. The Obama administration has said it would gather local feedback before designating any new monument.
If Otero Mesa did become a national monument, Geovic's claims would be "grandfathered in," meaning they would still stand because they predated the designation, Childress said. But the designation would trigger a "validity analysis" to make sure the operation would be economically worthwhile.
"It can be a very complicated and lengthy process if there's language in the monument designation saying it's closed for those uses," he said.
Reese writes from Santa Fe, N.M.
Back to Land Letter index page.
Six ranchers were forced to remove cattle from grazing allotments in southern Idaho last week after a federal court halted livestock grazing there pending the release of a new resource management plan (RMP).
Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho enjoined livestock grazing on 17 grazing allotments issued by the Bureau of Land Management's Jarbidge Field Office, ruling that interim grazing plans adopted under a settlement agreement between BLM and the nonprofit group Western Watersheds Project should not be extended.
BLM had asked Winmill to extend the interim grazing conditions until 2015, when it expects to be able to issue grazing permits based on the new RMP.
But in a six-page decision, Winmill said the interim plans "exist only as long as the parties agree they exist." Without an agreement between BLM and WWP, "the Court's remedy -- the injunction -- takes over."
|
| Western Watersheds Project contends that livestock grazing in southern Idaho's Jarbidge Field Office region has industrialized public lands and pushed sensitive species like the sage grouse closer to extinction. The group won an injunction stopping grazing on 17 allotments in the field office last week. Photo courtesy of WWP. |
Winmill had first enjoined livestock grazing on 28 allotments in 2005, after finding that BLM had violated multiple federal environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. WWP, ranchers and BLM then reached an agreement allowing some grazing to continue while BLM developed a new RMP for the Jarbidge Field Office. An environmental impact statement (EIS) for the plan would look at the effects of grazing on public lands within the field office's jurisdiction.
BLM, the ranchers and WWP were able to reach an agreement on 11 of the 28 allotments, but 17 of the allotments held by nine permittees remain at issue, and BLM still has not issued the EIS and RMP required under the settlement.
Environmentalists believe that greater sage grouse, pygmy rabbits and a rare desert flower called the Slickspot peppergrass can no longer afford to wait.
Todd Tucci, a senior attorney for Boise, Idaho-based Advocates for the West, who is representing WWP in the case, said ranchers have been resistant to changing their grazing practices, despite evidence that livestock grazing is decimating plant and wildlife populations and destroying their habitat.
Tucci noted that the contested allotments are in the hands of large agriculture operators who can afford to adjust their grazing rotations, including Boise-based J.R. Simplot Co., the nation's largest public lands rancher. "It may be working for them, it may be lining their pockets, but it's certainly not working for the sage grouse and it's certainly not working for the Slickspot peppergrass and our public lands," Tucci said.
Simplot spokesman David Cuoio would not comment on the case other than to say the company is looking at the ruling and weighing its options. But in a motion filed by lawyers for Simplot and the other permittees, the ranchers argued that an injunction is unjustified, noting that they have "taken significant measures" to address the presence of sage grouse and Slickspot peppergrass on their allotments.
Additionally, the ranchers noted that Judge Winmill's decision, issued Feb. 28 on the eve of the 2011 grazing season, caused significant harm to the permittees, as they were forced to find new pastures for 2,380 cows that were pregnant or had just given birth, creating a "dangerous and irreparable situation," as well as 800 cows that were scheduled for turnout on March 1. The ranchers' legal brief notes the significant expense of finding new forage and the impacts of moving cattle to a different location, "which will enhance stress, disease and/or death in some of these cattle."
But environmentalists argue such measures are necessary to protect the sage grouse, which was designated as a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection by the Fish and Wildlife Service last year (Greenwire, March 5, 2010).
"This is about saving the sage grouse in Jarbidge," said Katie Fite, WWP's biodiversity director. "They're being grazed to extinction out there, and the ranchers have refused to follow the best available science that exists by avoiding grazing during the nesting season. These birds can only take so much disturbance."
Recent data from the Idaho Fish and Game shows that sage grouse populations in the Jarbidge area have declined by more than 90 percent since 2006. For example, in the Browns Bench area, total male sage grouse observed at breeding sites are down from 185 in 2006 to 29 in 2010, and some areas are in an even steeper decline.
"If a population is going down, down, down, you want to do all you can for it, unless your plan is to drive it to extinction," Fite said.
Jon Marvel, WWP's executive director, said the sage grouse may not survive unless public lands management takes a dramatically different turn. "What we see is an extraordinary push for energy development of all kinds, plus the protection of livestock grazing, and the consequence of both those actions will be the extinction of sage grouse in the foreseeable future," he said.
Although BLM has taken steps to amend land management plans in parts of Wyoming that have been identified as prime sage grouse habitat, it has not taken similar steps in other states within the bird's range. While more than half of the world's sage grouse live in Wyoming, the bird is also found in 10 other Western states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
BLM Director Bob Abbey issued a memorandum in the wake of FWS's decision to list the grouse as a candidate species instructing staff to "withhold from sale or defer the sale of parcels" for energy development within prime sage grouse habitat and consider sage grouse habitat in the evaluation of renewable energy applications and transmission line proposals (Land Letter, June 24, 2010).
But Marvel said BLM has hardly taken any steps to protect sage grouse habitat. "There's a difference between public utterances and management decisions on the ground," he said.
One test of BLM's commitment to protecting sage grouse will come as the agency decides whether to fight the injunction. Jarbidge Field Office Manager Rick VanderVoet would not comment on what the agency's next steps will be, saying only, "We're reviewing the order and conferring with our legal counsel."
Regardless, the Jarbidge Field Office will have to take a look at sage grouse as it revises its 1987 RMP. The RMP will cover all kinds of management issues throughout the 1.4 million acres of public lands managed by the Jarbidge Field Office in southwestern Idaho and northern Nevada, including recreation, energy development and livestock grazing.
BLM just wrapped up the public comment period for the draft EIS for the new Jarbidge RMP at the end of January, and it is not expected to release a final EIS until 2012. A record of decision would have to be issued before the plan takes effect, and it could take BLM as long as three years to approve grazing permits under the new plan.
At present, the Jarbidge Field Office has more than 90 grazing permittees.
Click here to read Winmill's decision.
Click here to read the ranchers' motion asking Winmill to set aside his motion and here to read their brief in support of the motion.
Gable is a freelance journalist based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Back to Land Letter index page.
A controversial and long-delayed ski resort development proposed for a tract within southwest Colorado's Rio Grande National Forest has taken a major step toward becoming reality.
The Forest Service this week said it would conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) to determine whether the government should swap 204 acres of federally owned forestland for 178 acres of private land being offered by the developers of the "Village at Wolf Creek" resort. The development group, led by Texas billionaire B.J. "Red" McCombs, has said the land swap is critical to moving the project forward.
The Forest Service's decision to evaluate the land swap deal comes as a rare bit of good news for the developers, who have long sought to build next to the popular Wolf Creek Ski Area in Mineral County in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains.
|
| The Forest Service has agreed to complete an environmental impact statement to evaluate the impacts of a proposed land swap between the Rio Grande National Forest and a private ski resort developer. Photo courtesy of Colorado Wild. |
Since the resort was first proposed more than a decade ago, it has drawn steady fire from environmental groups and some local residents who worry it would have significant impacts on the area's natural resources and scenic vistas.
If approved, the land swap would resolve a lot of those concerns, said Clint Jones, the Austin, Texas-based project manager overseeing the development proposal for McCombs.
The private parcel McCombs owns is dotted with rare fen wetlands, which are unique because they receive their nutrients from groundwater, not precipitation. These wetlands, which typically thrive in colder climates, provide a nutrient-rich environment for rare flowers like the lady's slipper, as well as cotton grass and willowswater.
Jones said that while the 204-acre Forest Service parcel is larger than the private one, it contains fewer wetlands and is adjacent to U.S. Highway 160, which would be a primary route into the proposed ski resort. The Forest Service parcel is also heavily wooded, shielding the resort and preserving valuable viewsheds, he said.
"We feel like we've really addressed most of the concerns that most people had," Jones said. "When we looked at it, it just made sense across the board."
Rio Grande National Forest Supervisor Dan Dallas appeared to agree.
In the agency's feasibility analysis, which was done to determine whether the land swap proposal warranted a more thorough EIS, Dallas wrote that the idea "appears in the public interest," and is "technically feasible."
He added, "It is my belief that the tangible physical resources to be acquired, when accompanied by the intangible benefits of reduced, staged and partially relocated development, make this exchange worth moving forward on."
The latest development plan calls for building as many as 1,700 homes, townhomes and condominiums on private inholdings McCombs owns within the Rio Grande forest, as well as on the 204-acre Forest Service parcel.
In addition to the homes and condos, the development would include roads, water treatment and wastewater treatment plants, a possible natural gas power plant, a cable television center, and restaurants and shops, according to the Forest Service feasibility analysis.
But a number of serious environmental issues still need to be addressed before any development could occur, said Paul Joyce, a conservation associate with Colorado Wild in Durango.
Environmentalists are concerned that the development, even if not built directly on wetlands, could disrupt the groundwater flow and dry out the wetlands. "Of course it will be impossible to put thousands of people in there and not impact the wetlands," Joyce said.
Colorado Wild and others are also concerned about impacts to the threatened Canada lynx. There are only about 1,000 lynx left in the United States, and the species use the region as a migration corridor between winter and summer habitat, Joyce said.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service has spent a lot of taxpayers' dollars trying to get this species integrated back into the ecosystem, and this project works against that effort," he said.
Still, Joyce said he supports the Forest Service's decision to conduct a full-blown EIS before approving the land swap, adding that he is willing to live with the results of that study.
"All we want is a fair and transparent and honest appraisal" of the project, he said. "If at the end of the day they get their deal, then they get their deal. So be it."
Click here to read the Forest Service's feasibility analysis.
Click here to read the agreement between the Forest Service and McCombs to study the land exchange.
Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Back to Land Letter index page.
This story first appeared in E&ENews PM.
Nearly 50 environmental groups yesterday urged Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to block proposals to remove Endangered Species Act protections from the gray wolf in Western states.
A provision from Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) inserted on page 253 of the Senate's proposed continuing resolution to fund the government through October would give Interior Secretary Ken Salazar two months to reissue an April 2009 rule delisting wolves and would bar groups from challenging the decision in court (E&ENews PM, March 4).
Western governors, hunting groups and stock growers have strongly argued that state-managed hunts are needed to prevent wolves from preying on big-game herds and cattle. But a federal judge last August returned ESA protections to wolves in Idaho and Montana, halting planned hunts in both states.
The environmental groups, which include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity, said wolves presently inhabit 5 percent of their historic range and warn that a proposed plan in Wyoming would allow wolves to be shot on site in about 90 percent of the state.
"Decisions about the fate of the nation's imperiled wildlife should be made by scientists, not politicians," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at CBD, in a statement. "It would set a terrible precedent if Congress began removing protections for species one at a time."
Boxer and fellow committee member Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) last month blasted a wolf delisting proposal from Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch, arguing the bill flouts ESA and fails to address the needs of local communities.
"Legislation introduced today that completely and irreversibly removes the gray wolf from the list of threatened and endangered species sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the Endangered Species Act and threatens the continued existence of the gray wolf across this country," Boxer and Cardin said in a joint statement at the time.
Cardin, in an interview with Greenwire last month, said he would also oppose the measure.
"I'm very much aware of the gray wolf," said Cardin, adding that he would prefer to see a "clean" continuing resolution. "I think this is a solvable problem and relief is needed, but I would hope that we could do it in a deliberative way through our committees and not through a continuing resolution" (Greenwire, Feb. 22).
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Tuesday said he supported Tester's efforts to return management to Montana and Idaho, while maintaining protections in Wyoming.
"We support the language crafted and introduced by Senator Tester to delist the wolf in Montana and Idaho and to allow us to continue to have the program in place in Wyoming," Salazar said after a budget hearing before House appropriators.
Salazar added that he was unfamiliar with the specific language in the continuing resolution but that Interior was supportive of coming up with a "legislative solution."
Back to Land Letter index page.
This story first appeared in E&ENews PM.
The Bureau of Land Management has recommended the leasing of almost 2,000 acres in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, further indication that Obama administration officials plan to move forward with coal lease sales despite environmental concerns.
In a record of decision announced in the Federal Register, BLM called for leasing the South Hilight Field tract, which contains 213.6 million tons of recoverable coal, according to the agency.
The decision follows last year's environmental impact statement clearing the way for several leases and a 2005 application from Ark Land Co., a subsidiary of Arch Coal Inc., for two tracts of land adjacent to the Black Thunder Mine in Campbell County, Wyo. (Land Letter, Aug. 12, 2010).
The application is part of an effort by several mining companies to extend the lives of their mines.
In its decision, BLM said it took environmental concerns into account. But according to the document, not offering the lease for competitive bid "would deny the mine operator the ability to compete with other operators in an open market for a future coal demand that is projected to continue until at least 2035."
The group WildEarth Guardians said it might go to court to stop the lease from moving forward. The group is one of several challenging new coal mining efforts because of health and environmental concerns (Land Letter, Mar. 3, 2010).
Jeremy Nichols, the director of the climate and energy program for WildEarth Guardians, said the group is appealing a Forest Service decision to greenlight the project. Nichols said Forest Service consent is necessary for the lease sale because of the impact to portions of the Thunder Basin National Grassland.
"This seems to be more of the same leap-before-looking approach to coal leasing being taken by BLM. Even though the Forest Service's consent is under appeal and could be reversed, BLM is plowing ahead anyway. It's reckless disregard for balanced decisionmaking," he said.
Click here to view BLM's record of decision.
Back to Land Letter index page.
Advertisement
Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall have proposed legislation to designate roughly 4,700 acres of a former Pueblo site in the San Juan National Forest as a national monument.
The area, known as Chimney Rock, is dotted with remnants of houses, ceremonial buildings and other historic artifacts that date back 1,000 years to when Pueblo Indians occupied much of southwest Colorado.
The area is currently a national forest archaeological area. But in a statement, Bennet said its designation should be elevated to national monument. "Chimney Rock lacks a designation equal to its historically and culturally significant stature," he said.
Some locals hope the designation would boost tourism and help efforts to conserve the site.
"We were looking for a little bit more national recognition and tying it into the other Anasazi cultural sites around the Four Corners region," said James Dickhoff, town planner for Pagosa Springs. "It really kind of completes the grand circle of the Chaco settlements, brings a little bit more funding opportunities to Chimney Rock."
Such a designation would set Chimney Rock apart for additional preservation and protection. The bill also would require the secretary of Agriculture to consult with Indian tribes to create a management plan for the site.
Bennet introduced the same bill in the last Congress. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved it but the full Senate never considered it. At this time, there is no companion bill in the House (Karen Frantz, Durango Herald, March 7). -- DC
Back to Land Letter index page.
Attorneys for environmental groups and the Fish and Wildlife Service painted different portraits of Yellowstone National Park's grizzly bears in federal court hearings this week that could help determine the bears' future status under the Endangered Species Act.
While FWS attorneys are bullish on the bears' prospects, joining state regulators who maintain that lifting ESA protections for grizzlies will not lead to their extinction, environmentalists say that removing federal protections now would pose too great a risk to their survival.
The arguments, before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, came more than a year after grizzlies were returned to the Endangered Species List by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana. Molloy's ruling cited, among other things, the decline in whitebark pine, whose seeds provide a critical food source for the bears. Some critics have said Molloy overreached in his decision by drawing scientific conclusions that he is not qualified to make.
Allen Brabender, a Justice Department attorney arguing on behalf of FWS, said Yellowstone's grizzly population has been growing at between 4 percent and 7 percent a year, and the bears will find a way to adapt without the whitebark pine seeds. "Even in years without the whitebark pine being available, Yellowstone grizzly populations were still up," he said.
But attorney Doug Honnold, representing environmental groups, said the Yellowstone area is the "shining example" of bear conservation, but areas around Yellowstone concern conservationists.
The Yellowstone area population, listed as threatened under ESA, has grown from an estimated 200 animals in 1981 to more than 600 today, according to government estimates. That growth has led to increasing tensions between bear advocates and critics of ESA, especially as the animals spread into parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, where they prey on livestock, damage property and periodically attack humans (AP/Billings Gazette, March 7). -- DC
Back to Land Letter index page.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) said this week that Yellowstone National Park's bison herd should be thinned to reduce the chance of brucellosis transmission from diseased bison to cattle.
In a meeting between Schweitzer and new Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk, both men agreed that a new approach to bison management was needed, but Wenk resisted the governor's culling suggestion.
More than 500 Yellowstone bison have been captured this winter and face possible slaughter under a joint federal-state program to protect surrounding cattle ranches from brucellosis. The effort has been sharply criticized by wildlife advocates and some members of Congress.
A planned bison slaughter was suspended last month after Schweitzer blocked the animals from being shipped along Montana highways to the slaughterhouse (Land Letter, Feb. 17). At the time, Schweitzer suggested the park provide hay to the park's 3,500 bison to keep them from wandering outside the park over the winter months.
Schweitzer this week said the state is working on buffer zones allowing bison in small areas.
"Montana doesn't think we should be in a position of hauling brucellosis-infected bison out of the hot zone," Schweitzer said. "I don't think there is anyone who thinks that is a sustainable plan" (Matthew Brown, AP/Ravalli Republic, March 8). -- DC
Back to Land Letter index page.
Environmental groups and some local residents have raised concerns about a popular Colorado ski resort's plans to expand skiing into a densely forested area near Middle Boulder Creek that is used by wildlife.
The Forest Service last week accepted Eldora Mountain Resort's latest master plan, which calls for a number of upgrades including two new ski lifts at lower elevations that would allow skiers much closer access to Middle Boulder Creek. Portions of the plan that affect resort operations on Forest Service land must still undergo environmental review and public comment.
But members of the Middle Boulder Creek Coalition are already weighing in.
"It's a pretty dense forest, and pretty wet and moist, as north-facing hillsides are," said Dave Hallock, who has lived in Eldora for 30 years. "This is an isolated piece of land that doesn't have anything happening on it, and we feel that it's used as a wildlife corridor."
Coalition members say the area is home to a wide range of critters, including moose, elk, beavers, pine martens and boreal owls. Some have also expressed concern about noise associated with the resort's snowmaking equipment
Ski resort officials say they have already studied the possible impacts of expanding the resort north to Middle Boulder Creek, and they believe the proposal is reasonable.
"I can tell you that we've done our homework -- we've looked at all the concerns," said Eldora spokesman Rob Linde. "We've done considerable environmental impact studies to look at the impact of the lifts at Middle Boulder Creek, and based on our studies, there isn't any concern" (Laura Snider, Boulder [Colo.] Daily Camera, March 7). -- DC
Advertisement
Email this Story
Print this Story
