STATE TO SEEK DELAY OF OIL, GAS LEASES ON BLM LAND
Colorado wants BLM to consider impact on wildlife habitat
State officials and conservationists want action delayed on at least some of the new federal oil and gas leases proposed in Colorado, citing potential impacts on deer, elk, greater sage grouse and a bird being considered for the endangered species list.
The Colorado Bureau of Land Management is looking at offering leases on a total of 78,691 acres covering 83 parcels in eight different counties. The BLM is taking public comments until 4 p.m. Wednesday on the leases, set to be offered in a September sale.
Many of the parcels that could be put up for bid were deferred from an earlier sale while the Interior Department rewrote an Obama-era plan intended to conserve greater sage grouse.
The problem, conservationists say, is that some of the land targeted for leasing overlaps with wildlife migration corridors and critical winter range, areas that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke singled out for conserving in a 2018 order.
Other land that could be opened to drilling is important sage grouse habitat. Earlier this year, the BLM agreed in an amendment to Colorado’s grouse management to prioritize the bird’s habitat over energy development.
The greater sage grouse, known for its elaborate mating dance, once numbered in the millions across the West. Its population now is estimated at fewer than a half million.
“Even though the sage-grouse management plan has been diluted and reduced in strength since the original 2015 management plan, it still clearly states that the BLM should avoid leasing in priority sage grouse habitat,” said Barbara Vasquez, a Jackson County resident and a former member of the BLM Northwest Colorado Resource Advisory Council.
“All but two of the 33 lease parcels in Jackson County are overlapped by priority sage-grouse habitat,” Vasquez added.
Leases are also proposed on land next to the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, Vasquez said.
In preliminary written comments on the leases, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources noted that 77 percent of the public lands proposed for leasing are in sage-grouse habitat. The agency stressed that the BLM sagegrouse management plan says “priority will be given to development in nonhabitat areas first and then in the least suitable habitat” for sage grouse.
The state expects to request deferrals on some of the leases overlapping with areas identified by Colorado Parks and Wildlife as important wildlife corridors, Chris Arend, spokesman for the natural resources department, said in an email.
“We do talk to the state
regularly and often,” BLM spokesman Steven Hall said Monday.
“We appreciate whatever input they do have. Based on that input, we will try to make the best decisions we can in the upcoming lease sale.”
Regarding sage grouse, Hall said there’s “a great deal of general habitat” in northwest Colorado. The BLM is trying to strike the right balance between allowing access to oil and gas and conservation concerns, he added.
The 2018 order issued by Zinke on important biggame migration corridors and winter range directed federal agencies to develop guidelines “to avoid or minimize potential negative impacts on wildlife” when planning and developing energy, transmission and other projects in Western states.
In May, David Bernhardt, who succeeded Zinke as Interior secretary, announced the award of $2.1 million in grants to partners in Colorado and five other states for conservation of the wildlife habitat.
“The high priority elk and deer critical winter range and migration corridors in the BLM’s list of parcels are too vital to allow them to be impaired by an overarching priority for oil and gas leasing,” Suzanne O’Neill, Colorado Wildlife Federation executive director, said in a statement.
Arend said the state will work closely with the BLM to ensure the leases abide by the recent agreement on greater sage grouse management. “For lesser prairie chicken, the state and BLM are working through measures to best protect the habitat of this important bird,” he said.
Leases are proposed in a part of southeastern Colorado where lesser prairie chickens live. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering whether the bird, a member of the grouse family, should be placed on the endangered species list.
State wildlife biologists in April caught lesser prairie chickens in Kansas and released them in southeast Colorado as part of a multiyear program to rebuild the bird’s population. The state has listed the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species in Colorado since the 1970s.
Mallori Miller, senior director of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said in an email that the comment period is a vital step for the BLM to solicit feedback from local officials and other interested parties.
“It is up to the BLM to determine next steps in the process and which parcels they find consistent with characteristics for development, not industry nor environmental groups,” Miller said.
A protest period will follow the BLM’s final decision on which leases to offer in the September sale.