NWMA challenges sage grouse report
A report authored by independent biologist Megan Maxwell and commissioned by the Northwest Mining Association contends that the Greater sage-grouse conservation measures recommended by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in its 2011 National Technical Team Report are not based on the best available science as required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The report, released on May 21, accuses the U.S. Bureau of Land Management of “failing to use best available science,” ignoring existing regulatory tools, and using its December 2011 National Technical Team Report “to support a pre-determined outcome” to conserve the Greater sage-grouse.
Maxwell, who is trained in environmental law, contends that the conservation measures contained in BLM’s NTT Report were “designed to champion a policy to impose widespread, unprecedented land-use restriction in 11 western states with sage-grouse habitat both prior to completing Environmental Impact Statements to evaluate the proposed conservation measures and as part of the BLM and U.S. Forest Service land-use amendment process.”
The NWMA report found that “peer review scientists criticized the scientific underpinnings of the NTT Report. These reviewers noted numerous technical problems including significant mischaracterization of past research, methodological bias, substantial errors and omissions, and lack of independent authorship and prior peer review.”
Attorney Laura Skaer, the executive director of the NWMA, said in a statement, “We have long suspected there are many flaws in the NTT Report—including the lack of sound science to develop the recommended sage-grouse conservation measures. But we were shocked when Ms. Maxwell’s study revealed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Warranted But Precluded (WBP) determination did not conclude that the BLM categorically needed better or different regulatory mechanisms to protect sage-grouse.”
“It appears as if the BLM has perhaps mischaracterized – or at least misunderstood – the USFWS’s findings,” she suggested.
“This is a classic example of an agency ignoring the regulatory tools it already has in order to advance harsher policies,” Skaer declared.
“In developing EIS documents, agencies are supposed to use sound science and take a hard and objective look at all reasonable alternatives,” Skaer noted. “We think using the conservation measures in the [BLM] Manual 6840 [Special Status Species Management] should be one of the alternatives evaluated in the EIS documents.”
“Unfortunately, it appears BLM has reverse-engineered the entire EIS process by starting out with the NTT Report as the basis for the agency’s Preferred Alternative and working the process backwards to justify this outcome,” she said.
On March 23, 2010, the U.S. FWS issued a Warranted But Precluded (WBP) determination for the potential ESA-listing of the Greater sage-grouse and was given a listing priority number of 8 (1 representing the more dire need for [Endangered Species Act] listing and 12 being given substantially less priority). Loss of habitat and fragmentation due to wildlife, energy development, urbanization, agriculture, and infrastructure development were cited as primary threats to the sage-grouse.
