Corbin Hiar, E&E reporter
Published: Tuesday, April 7, 2015
The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to allow continued oil and gas drilling in areas of the southern Great Plains inhabited by the lesser prairie chicken, despite state wildlife officials’ failure to obtain required permanent conservation areas for the threatened species.
In a letter obtained by the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife, FWS Director Dan Ashe on March 31 signed off on a request by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) to effectively delay for two years a requirement that at least 25 percent of the mitigation land that the group secures to offset the impact of drilling be permanently conserved. Those long-term offsets protect larger areas and are more difficult to obtain from ranchers, farmers and other landowners.
WAFWA confirmed in its annual lesser prairie chicken progress report — which is set to be publicly released today — that “no permanent conservation sites had yet been established.”
The group’s failure does not appear to be due to a lack of funding. The report notes that it collected nearly $45.4 million in fees from 174 oil and gas, pipeline, electric, wind energy, and telecommunications companies for “unavoidable impacts” to lesser prairie chickens or their habitats.
“However, WAFWA recently purchased a piece of property demonstrating progress towards the permanent habitat goals,” the report added. That property is expected to offset 10 percent of the impacts generated by drilling and other economic activities in the chicken’s range, which spreads across parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Other potential permanent conservation opportunities WAFWA is considering include proposals from two conservation bankers and two title or easement negotiations, according to the report.
Although it fell short of the 25 percent permanent conservation requirement that was required before a mitigation waiver period for drillers ended on March 30, the late flurry activity represents “a reasonable and good faith effort to fully satisfy” the plan FWS agreed to last year, Ashe wrote (E&ENews PM, March 27, 2014).
Defenders of Wildlife slammed Ashe’s decision to allow drilling to continue, despite WAFWA’s failure to offset its impacts.
“By giving WAFWA a free pass and two more years to implement basic conservation commitments, the Fish and Wildlife Service is essentially signaling that legal agreements don’t matter and that offsetting adverse impacts to our country’s endangered wildlife can be allowed to slide,” said its president and CEO, Jamie Rappaport Clark.
Her group is part of a coalition of environmentalists that are suing FWS for listing the bird as threatened instead of endangered — a higher level of protection that they believe the species warrants (E&ENews PM, June 17, 2014).
“The oil and gas industry has continued to destroy lesser prairie-chicken habitat with no permanent conservation measures in place as of March 31 to offset those impacts, nor consequences for WAFWA failing to implement them,” Rappaport Clark added. “This is a prime example of why writing listing decisions based on future expectations and promises is inherently risky for imperiled wildlife.”
Environmentalists and conservation bankers — who purchase, monitor and sell prime habitat to wildlife agencies — have warned that the delay could immediately put the state and federal plan, the species, and millions of dollars at risk (Greenwire, March 27).
Distinguished by their elongated neck feathers, brown-and-white stripes and elaborate mating dance, lesser prairie chickens survive on just 17 percent of their historic range. In addition to habitat fragmentation, energy development is one of the main threats to the bird.
Lesser prairie chicken population increases
Aside from failing to obtain permanent conservation land, the WAFWA report claims that “significant progress was achieved” in conserving the ground-dwelling birds. The estimated total population of lesser prairie chickens increased by more than 3,600 birds, or 20 percent, to around 22,400.
WAFWA also paid out nearly $3 million to landowners for implementing temporary conservation activities last year on almost 210,000 acres of lesser prairie chicken habitat.
Its plan “allowed for economic development to continue in a seamless manner by providing an efficient mechanism to voluntarily conserve the [lesser prairie chicken] and/or comply with the [Endangered Species Act],” the report said.
Without the plan, there could have been “significant regulatory delays” in obtaining permits to incidentally injure or kill the species, WAFWA said. That could have caused “disruption to economic activity in an area vital to state and national interests and little incentive to conserve [lesser prairie chicken] habitat on private lands,” the report concluded.