Sage Grouse and Oil Drilling Can Co-Exist, Says New Report

For the past five years the greater sage-grouse has been considered a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Also during that time something unique happened: the 11 western states with sage-grouse populations cooperated with the federal government and private conservation organizations and corporations to do everything they could to keep the bird off the endangered species list.  Why would they do this? The logic was simple: if the bird’s populations could recover or at least stabilize—and there was some indication that it could—there would be less need to protect it. Keeping the sage-grouse off the ESA would ensure that the Act did not close off some lands to energy development. One of the components in this was the identification of priority areas of conservation (PACs) for the sage-grouse (pdf). Although much smaller than the birds’ historic range, these lands represent what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined to be the most important habitats for the birds in the future. The process didn’t actually set aside any land for conservation or establish any new land-use rules. That would follow after an eventual ESA listing. Now a new report (pdf) finds that these PACs are of great value to the greater sage-grouse but not all that important for energy development. The report—prepared by Western EcoSystems Technology for a conservation group called the Western Values Project—compared PACs on federal land in seven states to existing leases and rights-of-way for coal, oil, natural gas, solar and wind development. It also looked at the potential of PACs for development of those energy sources. The conclusions: only 16 percent of federal land within the PACs had much potential for oil and gas development. An additional 30 percent have potential for solar development. Just six percent have wind-power potential...more