WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Settlement Reached In Prairie-Chicken Lawsuit

Agreement Will Increase Public Oversight of Wildlife Protections in Carlsbad
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM - Three conservation groups and the federal government reached a settlement yesterday over a lawsuit seeking to enforce protections of Lesser Prairie-Chickens from oil and gas drilling. WildEarth Guardians, Chihuahuan Desert Conservation Alliance, and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation brought the lawsuit a year ago. The settlement requires that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) comply with the National Environmental Policy Act prior to granting industry requests to waive timing restrictions meant to safeguard the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, which is a candidate species awaiting Endangered Species Act protection, from disturbance during the breeding season.

“This settlement will enhance our ability to prevent the BLM from rubber-stamping waivers to protections that are urgently needed to prevent disturbance to Lesser Prairie-Chickens,” stated Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians. “We’ll need to be vigilant to ensure the agency doesn’t bend to the oil and gas industry’s will, but this settlement is a forward step in ensuring that Prairie-Chickens don’t disappear from New Mexico.”

The Carlsbad Field Office in southeastern New Mexico has issued more waivers of wildlife protections than any other BLM office in the West. As of 2004, only two active Lesser Prairie-Chickens lek sites were known to exist on BLM lands in the Carlsbad area. The primary reason for the near-extirpation of this grouse species from the region (which is one of the last areas in New Mexico where this species is found) is intensive oil and gas operations. Livestock grazing is also a threat to the bird, with its depletion of nesting cover and consequently increased risks of predation.

The BLM adopted protective stipulations in its 1997 Amendment to the Carlsbad Resource Management Plan which prohibit drilling for oil and gas, and exploration operations in Lesser Prairie-Chicken habitat during the breeding period of March 15 through June 15, each year. The agency can exempt oil and gas companies from the timing and noise restrictions in areas of no or low prairie-chicken booming activity, or unoccupied habitat. However, the BLM had been approving exemptions to this stipulation without conducting field surveys and without conducting required environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The lawsuit challenged 13 exemptions from Lesser Prairie-Chicken protective stipulations granted by BLM to oil and gas companies in 2004. From 2000-2004, approximately 500 exemptions from these protective stipulations were granted by the BLM Carlsbad Field Office. The agency sometimes approved industry requests for exemptions “within a few hours” of reviewing the requests. In response to the lawsuit, BLM granted two exemptions to the Lesser Prairie-Chicken protective stipulation in 2005 and only one in 2006.

A July 2004 report by the Carlsbad Field Office of the BLM indicated that one of two leks documented in the Carlsbad area was detected only because a gas compressor happened to shut off during the course of the prairie-chicken survey. The report tabulated noise sources heard during the course of the survey. According to these tabulations, on BLM lands in the Carlsbad area, one is 16 times more likely to hear a pumpjack or gas compressor than to hear a coyote howl or a birdsong. One is 19 times more likely to hear a pumpjack or gas compressor than to hear the wind.

“With the overwhelming background noise of compressors and pumpjacks, Lesser Prairie-Chicken breeding is being interrupted and may lead to their disappearance from southeast New Mexico,” stated Oscar Simpson of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. Simpson continued, “This settlement means that BLM will have to take its duties to protect wildlife more seriously.”

The BLM has failed to enforce protective stipulations elsewhere in the state. WildEarth Guardians and rancher Tweeti Blancett are currently challenging a gas pipeline in the Farmington Field Office. In that case, BLM allowed a pipeline company to proceed with construction, in violation of seasonal closures designed to protect mule deer and elk in a key wintering and calving area. The Interior Board of Land Appeals issued a stay in that case, preventing more pipeline construction until the case is decided.

The mission of WildEarth Guardians is to preserve and restore native wildlands and wildlife in the American Southwest through fundamental reform of public policies and practices.

To receive the settlement agreement, photos of Lesser Prairie-Chickens and other background information, contact Dr. Nicole Rosmarino.

Additional contact: Oscar Simpson, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, (505) 259-5766

Background Information

In June 1998, the Lesser Prairie-Chicken warranted Endangered Species Act protection, according to the Service, but was considered precluded by higher priority species. Eight years later, it has not even been proposed for listing and therefore remains an unprotected candidate species. The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to list the bird and other candidate species under the Endangered Species Act is currently in litigation.

The continued decline of the bird’s population throughout its five-state territory also adds greater urgency to list the species. A report by WildEarth Guardians documents declines in all five states in the Lesser Prairie-Chicken’s range, and a new threat - hybridization with Greater Prairie-Chickens - in Kansas. When the Lesser Prairie-Chicken was determined to warrant listing in 1998, the Service acknowledged that this grouse species occupied less than 10% of its former range. Population declines and further range reduction have continued over the past five years.

In July 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a briefing paper which includes extensive discussion and citations on the harm to Lesser Prairie-Chickens from infrastructure and operations related to oil and gas. Other scientific papers have similarly noted that Lesser Prairie-Chickens avoid and are disturbed by noises and structures involved in oil and gas operations. In November 2004, WildEarth Guardians released a report, “Lesser Prairie-Chicken: The Sky Really is Falling,” which documents continued declines and threats against the critically imperiled bird throughout its current five-state range in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in the period during which the species has been a candidate awaiting Endangered Species Act listing (1998-present).

According to the groups, Bush administration policies will further degrade species habitat. In particular, they argue that the Bush Energy Plan, which favors resource extraction over environmental conservation, will further imperil habitat of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken. The Bush Energy Plan emphasizes escalating extraction of fossil fuels, and the BLM’s leasing program’s fast-pace is coupled with swift approvals of drilling proposals. In its leasing program, BLM has continually refused to do full environmental analysis mandated by federal law. Since October 2003, WildEarth Guardians has challenged leasing by the BLM on approximately 300,000 acres in the state based on endangered species and other concerns. Once leases are issued, BLM maintains that it has little authority to deny drilling proposals. Throughout the West, the BLM has escalated the rate of drilling approvals, with over 6,000 approvals estimated for 2004, versus 2003’s tally of 4,000. In October 2005, the BLM announced that it would add 35 new staffpeople in Carlsbad and Farmington to expedite drilling approvals despite the fact that approvals for new wells are already outpacing industry’s ability to drill. in New Mexico in 2004, while 1,321 wells were approved by the BLM, only a little over half of that number (726 wells) - were drilled.

In addition, the Bush administration has a track record of forestalling listing of imperiled species. While President Clinton listed 65 species a year during his administration, and President George H.W. Bush listed 59 species per year, the George W. Bush administration has listed only 8 species per year, and all of these were under court order. For species on the brink of extinction, protection delays lead to species declines. A 2005 report by the Center for Biological Diversity (based on Service data) documents 42 species that have gone extinct due to delays in Endangered Species Act protection.