WildEarth Guardians

Monday, December 10, 2007
Feds Allow Wildlife Protections to be Breached Nearly 1,000 Times in New Mexico

Conservation and Hunting Groups Call for State Action
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Contact: Nicole J. Rosmarino, Ph.D., Conservation Director, WildEarth Guardians (505) 699-7404

Santa Fe, NM-Dec. 10. WildEarth Guardians released a report today that documents nearly 1,000 breaches of seasonal closures and timing limitations that are supposed to protect wildlife from disturbance by oil and gas drilling. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) adopted these timing restrictions to help protect mule deer, elk, and pronghorn in northwest New Mexico and lesser prairie-chickens in southeast New Mexico, but today's report details how the federal agency is routinely allowing oil and gas companies to avoid these restrictions. Approximately 1,000 breaches occurred from 2000-2007.

More than forty individuals and groups representing hunting, conservation, and business, are calling on the BLM to enforce these seasonal closures given severe wildlife disturbance occurring during critical winter and spring seasons. The groups are also asking Governor Richardson, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and the New Mexico State Game Commission to challenge the BLM's reneging on these key promises made to the public to safeguard the state's wildlife.

"All it takes is a phone call or email from industry, and the Bureau of Land Management brushes aside key wildlife protections that it promised to the public," stated Dr. Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians, author of the report. "It's not just a few exceptions here and there - the feds are telling oil and gas companies hundreds of times that they don't have to worry about wildlife," continued Rosmarino.

"The Bureau of Land Management is running roughshod over the state's wildlife," stated Oscar Simpson of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. "Mule deer and elk migrating south from Colorado won't survive the winter if they have to spend all of their time dodging new pipeline construction and gas well drilling," continued Simpson.

The BLM acknowledges that it has swept aside these promises for the convenience of industry, stating to ConocoPhillips in 2006, "…we have been very liberal in granting exceptions." ConocoPhillips has requested more exceptions to wildlife closures than any other company operating in northwest New Mexico. The runner up is Burlington, which ConocoPhillips acquired last year.

A frequent rationale for requests is that when companies have drill rigs, they have to use them. In fact, the pace of drilling in the west has become so swift that there are not enough rigs to keep up with new well approvals. In Farmington, the BLM grants approximately 89% of company requests for exceptions to seasonal closures.

"The ultimate insult is that, not only are wildlife now being denied protections during critical winter and spring months, they are being robbed of those protections to quench the oil and gas industry's unquenchable thirst for fossil fuels," stated Rosmarino.

The groups requesting the BLM and state agencies to stop the breaches of seasonal closures point to an Executive Order issued August 16, 2007 which requires federal agencies "to facilitate the expansion and enhancement of hunting opportunities and the management of game species and their habitat." This aim is to be accomplished, in part, by federal collaboration and consultation with state agencies (Executive Order 13443 - Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation).

"Sportsmen and the conservation community all across the nation have been asking for common sense reform of oil and gas development on public land. The President's Executive Order 13433 acknowledges that reform is needed. Now BLM needs to step up to the plate and actually make sure there is a balance between development and protection of wildlife, habitat and our water resources," stated Simpson.

The WildEarth Guardians report points out that seasonal closures on oil and gas are not enough, as wildlife habitat is being irreversibly destroyed by the rapid pace of drilling in New Mexico. The BLM often describes severely degraded conditions in its correspondence to oil and gas companies. For instance, the Ensenada Mesa Specially Designated Area is supposed to protect a resident pronghorn population from gas drilling, but contains more than 14.2 gas wells per square mile. This is a staggering level of development, with a well encountered, on average, every 45 acres. "Pronghorn won't have a fighting chance in the gas fields unless the BLM slows down the drilling," stated Rosmarino.

WildEarth Guardians compiled the report based on a Freedom of Information Act response from the BLM. For further background information, contact Dr. Nicole J. Rosmarino at 505-699-7404 or nrosmarino@fguardians.org

Background information

Two field offices of the BLM in New Mexico have adopted seasonal closures and then allowed those closures to be systematically violated: the Farmington and Carlsbad Field Offices. These field offices are respectively located in the northwest corner of the state, overlying the San Juan Basin, and the southeast corner, overlying the Permian Basin. Both basins are already intensively drilled for oil and gas, with thousands of additional wells on the horizon. They are ground zero for oil and gas extraction in New Mexico.

Since the settlement of a lawsuit with WildEarth Guardians and other groups in April 2006, the number of waivers to timing stipulations granted in Carlsbad has sharply dropped to less than ten per year. The settlement requires that lesser prairie-chicken surveys and a public process occur prior to any waivers being granted. In contrast, Farmington is issuing an average of 110 per year with no public notice.

Carlsbad has allowed at least 516 breaches of lesser prairie-chicken timing stipulations since adopting the restrictions in 1997. The timing limits are meant to protect the bird, which is a formal candidate for Endangered Species Act protection, from noise during its breeding months. Lesser prairie-chickens have intricate mating rituals, including dancing and emitting "booming" noises on their traditional dancing grounds, called "lek" sites. When new drilling and other noisy oil and gas operations occur during spring breeding, female prairie-chickens have difficulty locating males, thus hindering reproduction. Noise surveys conducted by the BLM have shown that visitors to lands managed by the Carlsbad Field Office are nineteen times more likely to hear a pumpjack or a compressor than to hear the wind.

Farmington has allowed at least 441 breaches of seasonal closures since their adoption in 2003. The closures are meant to protect mule deer, elk, pronghorn, and other wildlife during critical winter months and spring and summer breeding periods. Some breaches involve drilling multiple gas wells or allowing gas exploration across vast acreages (19,000 acres in one instance). Three specially designated areas - Rosa Mesa, Middle Mesa, and Rattlesnake Canyon - are taking the brunt of the exceptions, as they collectively account for about half of all the exceptions allowed by Farmington BLM. Rattlesnake Canyon is the most abused area, with at least 97 exceptions to wildlife closures granted there.

The Farmington BLM office approves an average of approximately 89% of the company requests it receives for exceptions to wildlife closures. In some years, its approval rate has been even higher - 99%. Many requests are granted within a day. No public notice or public process is conducted. The BLM often describes bleak conditions in the specially designated areas in which it is allowing seasonal closures to be breached, including extremely high well and road densities; a lack of browse plants, including true mountain mahogany, Wyoming big sagebrush, and antelope bitterbrush; consumption of juniper and pinyon pine by mule deer as starvation food, which causes abortion; and a lack of hiding cover for the animals.

Most of the closures in Farmington run from December 1 - March 31, and the BLM often justifies exceptions on the basis that they are at the front or back end of the closure period. However, exceptions have been granted in every month from December - March since the seasonal closures were approved in Farmington's 2003 Resource Management Plan. Conservationists and hunting groups contend that the BLM is reneging on a key mitigation promised in its plan through an entirely private process that places oil and gas profits above the public interest in healthy wildlife populations.