energy
Successes and Highlights: 2007
Taking a look back, here are some of the highlights of our most effective and successful year so far!
• Protecting the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse and its Front Range Streamside Habitat. Because of our relentless efforts to force the Bush administration to rely on good science in its decision about Endangered Species Act protection, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse enjoyed more than two years of additional protection across its entire range and will remain fully protected throughout the Colorado portion of its range. As a result of our campaign the Department of the Interior also admitted to political meddling in key Preble’s meadow jumping mouse decisions. This protection is critical, especially in the face of continuing sprawl across Colorado’s Front Range.
• Slowing the Explosion of Oil and Gas Drilling. Our challenges over the past several years have resulted in the adoption by the Bureau of Land Management of key endangered species protections on an estimated 1.4 million acres of Bureau lands in Utah and 300,000 acres in Wyoming. We have also secured withdrawal of nearly 500,000 acres of important habitat from lease sales across Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Among the many species benefiting from our efforts are Gunnison sage-grouse, Parachute penstemon, white-tailed prairie dog, black-footed ferret, and lynx. Many of these successes are the result of our precedent-setting legal decision late last year in a challenge to oil and gas leasing in Utah. With several coalition partners, we secured another key legal victory in western Colorado’s South Shale Ridge area, and our challenge of a 900-well drilling proposal in eastern Utah halted the project while we are advancing Endangered Species Act protection for the highly endangered Pariette cactus.
• Defending the Endangered Species Act and Improving Conservation of Endangered Species on Private Land. Center for Native Ecosystems is building on our tremendous success last year – with the rest of the conservation community – defending the Endangered Species Act against the fiercest attack in at least a decade. We led the defensive effort in Colorado last year, and while we remain vigilant for signs of renewed attacks we’ve been able to focus instead on advancing Farm Bill provisions and other legislation that improve private land conservation of endangered species. We are simultaneously building on our impressive network of relationships in the farming and ranching communities.
• Celebrating Endangered Species Day. The United States Senate passed a resolution declaring May 18, 2007 as Endangered Species Day, encouraging schools to set aside a few hours for students to learn about what endangered and threatened species live in their state, why they are endangered, and what they can do.
• Growing the Toolbox. In coalition with The Nature Conservancy, Black Canyon Land Trust, and several other partners we completed an effort earlier this year to acquire and protect from development the most important surviving habitat for the clay-loving wild buckwheat, a highly imperiled native Colorado wildflower. We collectively raised $380,000 to purchase the land and fund the conservation management plan for the population. We are also pursuing an expansion of the existing critical habitat designation to include several important but more recently discovered populations.
• Unmatched Legal Prowess. We are currently involved in six lawsuits to protect endangered species, including litigation on behalf of white-tailed prairie dog and Gunnison sage-grouse. When forced to go to court as a last resort, our litigation record is 25-3 – we almost never lose.
• Telling the Important Stories. So far in 2007 we have generated or favorably influenced well over 700 news stories, including articles in the Washington Post, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Casper Star Tribune, Billings Gazette, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Rapid City Journal, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Chicago Sun-Times, Albuquerque Tribune, Craig Daily Press, and Salt Lake Tribune.
• Restoring the Sagebrush Sea. We are leading a coalition of conservation groups in the fight to secure Endangered Species Act protection for the white-tailed prairie dog, one of the most important keystone species of the Sagebrush Sea. Center for Native Ecosystems participated in a relocation effort, helping to move white-tailed prairie dogs out of harm’s way. Earlier in the year we persuaded the Colorado governor’s office to push the BLM for stronger greater sage-grouse protections – another key Sagebrush Sea species – from oil and gas drilling in northwestern Colorado, and the U.S. Department of Interior conceded that their preliminary Endangered Species Act finding for this keystone species should have been positive (instead of negative) and committed to conducting the formal status review. We are also helping to lead a campaign –with several conservation groups and Colorado’s San Miguel County – to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse, reduced to at most a few thousand birds.
• Restoring Scientific Integrity at the Bush Administration. In an exceptional collaboration with Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Biological Diversity, and other organizations, last year we produced a Washington Post exposé on illegal political interference. We leveraged this story into Congressional hearings, an Interior Inspector General’s report further validating and detailing the illegal political interference by Bush appointees in Endangered Species Act decisions, repeated flushes of news coverage on the issue, the firing of the key administration appointee, demands by key Members of Congress that the administration fix the problems, and Congressional momentum toward improving the barriers between science and politics at the Department of the Interior. The Bush administration is now revisiting a suite of these decisions.
While You Were Out
I was out on maternity leave August 11-November 5. It’s interesting to be an outsider for a few months and then reenter the inner workings of CNE and endangered species conservation. Here’s my take on the big things that happened.
More Bush Administration Mixed-Bag Decisions
Two big decisions affecting species we’re working on were announced. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed with our argument that Pariette cactus is a separate species, and proposed to treat it as such. Yay! Of course, this was something that they first proposed to do 11 years ago, and the Service authorized tons of oil and gas drilling in its habitat since then, but, hey, better late than never. The Service also agreed that the very drilling that the agency has allowed over the past decade threatens the cactus with extinction, and found that our petition was correct – the cactus needs to be protected as Endangered rather than Threatened. But in usual Bush administration fashion, they refused to actually make the change – that will take yet another lawsuit on our part. Instead, they found that the cactus warranted additional protection but that they were precluded from adding it to the Endangered list now because of higher priority actions. Such as? I guess we’ll need to ask them in court.
And the Service also announced that they have officially decided that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is indeed a valid subspecies that warrants continued protection under the Endangered Species Act. Yay! But there’s the usual catch – now they’re claiming that the mouse only warrants protection in Colorado. The mice in Wyoming are on their own. There was a public hearing in Lakewood about this on December 10th, and one in Wheatland on December 12th. Written comments can also be submitted until January 22nd.
More Movement on Making Oil and Gas Leasing Accountable
The Bureau of Land Management in Utah suspended their quarterly oil and gas lease sale in large part because of our successful appeal of previous leasing in black-footed ferret habitat. The Interior Board of Land Appeals agreed with us that the BLM must do additional environmental analysis before signing over drilling rights on public lands, and now it seems like they are scrambling to start actually assessing potential impacts before ceding these areas to industry. This is a straight out yay.
Climate Change Awareness Continues to Mount
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, which is totally amazing. My husband was a grad student at CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in the late 1990’s, and collected lake sediment cores and ice cores in Greenland and Labrador, and modeled the impacts of volcanic eruptions on past climate. His advisor, Jonathan Overpeck, was one of those honored. CNE has always included the threat of climate change in our Endangered Species Act listing petitions, even though at first our attorneys recommended against doing so. Now acknowledging that climate change may exacerbate other threats to imperiled species is mainstream.
Staff Updates
Three months speeds by, yet some changes were registered. Brian helped sea turtles in Costa Rica. Megan finished the hopefully final draft of her thesis. Melissa oversaw the publication of our first print newsletter. Josh fought off mono while running the office. Jacob ran for mayor of Golden (and won the day after I returned!), and announced that he will be leaving CNE. And I am feeling incredibly lucky because I’m able to do what I love by working at CNE half-time and yet still spend lots of time with our new little boy, Owen.
The only real mention of our work that I remember seeing while I was out was an AP article on the Preble’s decision, so that was a good reminder about how much of what we do goes on behind the scenes. But please know that we are all busy plugging away wrapping up the last deadlines for 2007 and planning for our 2008 campaigns, hoping that all the imperiled critters and plants emerge from their winter slumbers to a more secure future.
Coal Burning Power Plant Denied
Who would've thought it could start in Kansas?
Last week, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced it denied a permit for a massive coal burning power plant to be built in Holcomb, a town made famous by Truman Capote's book, In Cold Blood.
The reason? It wasn't because of mercury, although coal burning power plants spew large amounts of the potent neurotoxin. It wasn't because of nitrogen oxide pollution, which forms acid rain and smog. No, it was because of carbon dioxide.
That's right, carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, the reason our climate is changing. It also happens to be the most abundant byproduct of fossil fuel combustion. And the decision by the state of Kansas represents the first time ever that a coal burning power plant has been stopped because of greenhouse gases.
But it's only a start.
Scientists report we need an 80% reduction greenhouse gases by 2050 to effectively combat climate change. So while stopping a new coal burning power plant is a big step forward, we can't stop there. We need real reductions if we're going to save the planet.
The good news is, if we can stop a coal burning power plant from being built because of carbon dioxide emissions, we can do anything. This monumental step forward gives us the momentum we need not just to keep greenhouse gases from increasing, but to reverse the trend of global warming. The tide is turning and Kansas is leading the charge.
Denver Post to BLM: Withdraw Lease Parcels in Sensitive Habitat
The Denver Post editorial captures well the diverse constellation of voices that are increasingly being raised against the too-much-too-fast oil and gas leasing program on federal lands which the Bureau of Land Management administers.
Not only is Center for Native Ecosystems represented, but a spokesperson for the Colorado Division of Wildlife is also quoted about the state agency's "serious concerns" with the oil and gas leases being offered. In addition, the mayor of Granby highlights local worries about increased traffic congestion from oil and gas drilling activity in the area. Even U.S. Representative Mark Udall (D-CO) has asked the BLM to postpone leasing in the area, the Post editorial notes.
For our part, Center for Native Ecosystems was able to highlight the large number of leases being offered in sage grouse "core areas," those places identified by the Colorado Division of Wildlife as most important for greater sage grouse survival. "From a biological perspective, it is not appropriate to lease in those areas," we offered.
The Post ended its editorial by rightly pointing out that postponing oil and gas leasing in Grand County until the BLM finishes its new management plan for the area would "give local residents and other parties an opportunity to comment on how the land has been used — whether it is recreation or conservation — and be heard on how it may best be used in the future."
Let's hope the BLM hears this message coming from so many different sources.
Media Notices Utah Lease Sale Cancellation: Colorado BLM Put on Notice
In writing about the cancellation of the November lease sale in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune noted that the Bureau of Land Management in that state has grown more cautious about leasing acreage in sensitive wildlife habitat after a ruling by the Interior Board of Land Appeals brought about by Center for Native Ecosystems last year.
Originally, we protested the leasing of land in a white-tailed prairie dog colony where the highly endangered black-footed ferret is being reintroduced. Black-footed ferrets are North America's most endangered mammal, one that almost went extinct in the wild and is slowly being reintroduced in places like eastern Utah, where there are still prairie dog colonies intact enough to sustain it. The BLM offered its oil and gas leases without considering what drilling would do to the ferret reintroduction program, and the land board's ruling to that effect has implications for all of the BLM's analysis of drilling impacts to wildlife.
CNE Staff Biologist Megan Corrigan appears in the Salt Lake Tribune story with this apt assessment of the situation: "It makes sense for the BLM to take time and do a good, thorough analysis that looks at the impacts on the fragile wildlife of the lands they are considering for leasing... Once that property gets turned over to the energy companies, it is too late."
High Country News also wrote about the ruling and specifically investigated how much of a precedent the Utah lease sale cancellation could set for other BLM offices. This question was most pointedly raised by other outlets in Colorado, in part because the upcoming Colorado oil and gas lease sale includes many parcels in habitat for at-risk wildlife, such as the greater sage-grouse.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel considered quite directly the notion that the BLM in Colorado was subject to the same interpretation of their duty to protect wildlife habitat from drilling impacts. The opening paragraph notes that the Utah lease sale cancellation "gave conservationists
reasons to object to next month’s Bureau of Land Management oil and gas
lease sale in Colorado, which promises to auction large swaths of
sensitive wildlife habitat statewide."
A few days later, the Denver Post weighed in as well. The Post's story highlighted the opposition to leases offered within its borders b Grand County, which is following in the footsteps of San Miguel County, the city of Grand Junction, and other state and municipal entities around Colorado who have been forced to speak out against BLM leases offered in places near and dear to them. Most importantly, however, the Post highlighted the concerns of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, which has been developing a statewide plan to conserve the greater sage-grouse and is rightfully upset about leases being offered in prime habitat for this and other wildlife species it manages. Ron Volarde at the Division of Wildlife told the Denver Post, "The Colorado Division of Wildlife has several concerns to the impact on wildlife and habitat within and surrounding the proposed lease area... Fragmentation of the habitat will have a negative impact to many wildlife species."
