Greater Sage Grouse and Mining

Check out this press release by the Northwest Mining Association - They have release a brand new report challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s NTT report regarding the Greater Sage grouse.  This is a great opportunity for the mining industry and elected leaders to work together and make policies that prove that responsible mining and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive goals!

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

BLM GREATER SAGE-GROUSE NTT REPORT CHALLENGED

 NWMA Report Reveals BLM Fails to Use Best Available Science, Ignores Existing Regulatory Tools and Advances a Pre-Decisional Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation Policy

SPOKANE, WA, The Northwest Mining Association (NWMA) today released a report authored by an independent biologist, Megan Maxwell, documenting that the Greater sage-grouse (sage-grouse) conservation measures recommended in BLM’s December 2011 National Technical Team Report (NTT Report) are not based on Best Available Science as required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The NWMA report, BLM’s NTT Report: Best Available Science or a Tool to Support a Pre-Determined Outcome? clearly shows that the NTT Report was designed to champion a policy to impose widespread, unprecedented land-use restrictions in 11 western states with sage-grouse habitat both prior to completing Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) to evaluate the proposed conservation measures and as part of the BLM and US Forest Service land-use plan amendment process.

As described in the NWMA report, peer review scientists criticized the scientific underpinnings of the NTT Report. These reviewers noted numerous technical problems including significant mischaracterization of past research, methodological bias, substantial errors and omissions, and lack of independent authorship and prior peer review.

As part of her review, Ms. Maxwell also compared the NTT Report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) March 2010 Warranted but Precluded (WBP) determination (effectively making the Greater sage-grouse a “candidate” species under the ESA), BLM’s 2008 Manual 6840 governing protection of candidate species, and a 2004 BLM guidance on conserving sagebrush habitat.

The key finding in the NWMA report questions the need for and appropriateness of the NTT Report in the first place, because the USFWS’ WBP determination found that the conservation measures in BLM’s Manual 6840: Special Status Species Management could be an adequate regulatory tool. USFWS concluded that BLM needed to properly and consistently implement Manual 6840 in its Resource Management Plans and provide sufficient monitoring data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the resulting conservation measures.

In describing this finding, Ms. Laura Skaer, NWMA Executive Director stated, “We have long suspected there are many flaws in the NTT Report – including the lack of sound science to develop the recommended sage-grouse conservation measures. But we were shocked when Ms. Maxwell’s study revealed the USFWS’ WBP determination did not conclude that the BLM categorically needed better or different regulatory mechanisms to protect sage-grouse. It appears as if BLM has perhaps mischaracterized – or at least misunderstood – the USFWS’s findings.”

Ms. Skaer went on to say that “this is a classic example of an agency ignoring the regulatory tools it already has in order to advance harsher policies. BLM’s jettisoning of Manual 6840 in favor of the much more restrictive regulatory measures proposed in the NTT Report appears arbitrary and capricious at best. BLM has not provided any explanation of why the conservation measures in Manual 6840 are not adequate. This is especially troubling in light of what the USFWS’ findings actually say.”

The NWMA’s critical examination of the NTT Report has significant implications for the EIS documents BLM is currently preparing throughout the west to evaluate new sage-grouse conservation measures. “In developing EIS documents, agencies are supposed to use sound science and take a hard and objective look at all reasonable alternatives. We think using the conservation measures in the Manual 6840 should be one of the alternatives evaluated in the EIS documents,” explained Ms. Skaer. “Unfortunately, it appears BLM has reverse-engineered the entire EIS process by starting out with the NTT Report as the basis for the agency’s Preferred Alternative and working the process backwards to justify this outcome.”

Additionally, information just made public by the Federal government has revealed that BLM is presently incorporating elements of the NTT Report’s conservation measures into many of its 79 Resource Management Plans impacted by sage grouse through interim guidance prior to completing the EIS process.

NWMA retained Ms. Megan Maxwell, a biologist trained in environmental law, to conduct a detailed review of the NTT Report and compare it to comments from a group of peer review scientists who evaluated a draft of the NTT Report.

For more information about The Northwest Mining Assocation work with this issue, contact Laura Skaer at [email protected].