BLM Defers Several Parcels from November 8 Oil and Gas Lease Auction

On October 31 BLM announced that it will defer some parcels from its November 8 Oil and Gas Lease Auction and developed a new lease stipulation CO-40. 

The CWF-NWF Protest Submitted on October 24, 2007

CWF and NWF had submitted a Protest to the BLM concerning its November 8 oil and gas lease auction that would make available for development, against the recommendation of the Division of Wildlife, thousands of acres of sage-grouse habitat and big game winter range in Jackson, Grand, and Routt Counties.  The Protest states that BLM has failed to meet ifs obligations to disclose and analyze information regarding effects on wildlife from drilling.  The BLM is currently revising its 23-year-old land management plan for the North Park and Middle Park area - a plan that substantially predates both the current energy development boom and the current science on the habitat needs of the declining greater sage grouse.  CWF and NWF asked the BLM to defer leasing of identified grouse habitat and big game winter range until it has disclosed and analyzed up-to-date information regarding the effects of energy development on these wildlife species.  

The North Park area  in particular - the high, open valley around Walden, Colorado - is classic sagebrush steppe habitat, supporting greater sage grouse and other sagebrush obligates.  Substantial portions also provide vital winter habitat for mule deer and elk.  These winter concentration areas are especially critical in North Park, where deep snow makes much of the valley unusable for wildlife during the winter.

BLM's proposal to lease large expanses of occupied sage grouse habitat in North Park paradoxically takes place just as BLM is involved in a revision of the area's governing land use plan, and the State of Colorado is in the midst of a concerted effort to prevent the species from declining so far as to end up on the Endangered Species List.  The Colorado Division of Wildlife has compiled, and provided to BLM information showing "core areas" (which are occupied habitat most critical to the survival of grouse populations) and recommended developing and restoring lands that are outside of those core areas.  Unfortunately, BLM appears to have ignored this information, and is proposing to lease occupied sage grouse core areas under conditions that fall far short of what current science indicates is necessary to preserve populations.  By leasing now with inadequate safeguards,  BLM also improperly narrows its own options for land management plan revisions -- taking off the table options which could include the nonleasing or deferred leasing of sage grouse core areas.

Leasing some of Colorado's last unleased sage grouse core habitat and mule deer winter range at this time - while BLM is in the process of revising land use plans and has not yet analyzed or acted upon emerging research on the effects of energy development on thsoe species - is not a responsible way of balancing energy development and the conservation of Colorado's wildlife resources.  Common sense and federal law dictate that BLM not issue these leases until such time as it has adequately assessed what they will mean for wildlife - and what the BLM can do to reduce the severity of those impacts.  In particular, leasing sage grouse core areas in North Park, MIddle Park and around Craig threatens to undermine the State's efforts to develop and implement a comprehensive conservation strategy for the sage grouse.

Parcels Deferred by BLM on October 31 from the November 8 oil and gas lease auction

New lease stipulation CO -40: