JEFF GEARINO Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:00 am
The greater sage grouse will receive special protection from oil and gas development on about a million acres in the Powder River Basin under an interim management plan announced Wednesday by the Bureau of Land Management.
The new sage grouse strategy calls for limiting oil and gas development to one well pad per 640 acres within a key, million-acre area of the basin - unless operators can convince the agency their projects will result in no loss of sage grouse or sage grouse habitat.
The new rules will be in effect until the BLM revises its Buffalo resource management plan, a process that officials said could take up to four years, said Buffalo Field Office Manager Chris Hanson.
BLM officials said the interim management strategy supports Wyoming's efforts to enforce its new sage grouse management plan that was drafted by a team appointed Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Agency officials said the new rules may have little overall impact on coal-bed methane development in the gas-rich Powder River Basin. Hanson said 2,000 or more well permits are expected to be processed each year during the management plan revision.
BLM officials outlined their interim plan for oil and gas development in the basin during a conference call from Buffalo Wednesday afternoon.
They said the special restrictions are aimed at preventing the sage grouse from being listed for special protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Hanson said the agency is imposing the special permitting restrictions within designated sage grouse "focus" areas. The areas cover about a million acres of public lands within the Powder River Basin.
He said the focus areas generally line up with the map of "core" areas outlined in Freudenthal's recently released state plan.
Hanson said the temporary rules should provide "both an active and viable approach" for both sage grouse management and energy industry development in the basin.
"We're trying to strive for keeping healthy sage grouse populations out there … balancing those wildlife resources and energy development in light of those sage grouse issues," he said. "We're not limiting oil and gas development, but we are saying we're going to set the bar a little higher in these areas."
"At this point, we're going to review all of the (drilling) proposals on a case-by-case basis in those focus areas, and we will rely on industry to demonstrate to us that their projects in those areas can be consistent with a well pad density not to exceed one location per 640 acres," he said.
If energy developers want to defer development of their leases within the focus areas during the plan revision process, Hanson said the agency "will entertain" lease suspension requests.
Shannon Anderson, an organizer with the Powder River Basin Resource Council, called the move a "step in the right direction, and it shows that the agency realizes they can't do business as usual anymore" when it comes to sage grouse protection.
"The big issue we have is that the BLM really needs to protect the species now … and waiting for the final proposal to come out four years down the road isn't going to be effective," she said in a phone interview.
Officials with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming could not be reached for comment.
Costly effort
Hanson said the BLM decided to not pursue an amendment to the Buffalo resource management plan as previously announced. Instead, Hanson said the BLM is beginning work on an environmental impact statement for a full revision of the plan.
He said the approximately $3 million effort should take about four years and should ultimately be more timely and cost-effective. Hanson said the special stipulations will remain in effect until the revision is completed.
The BLM controls more than 60 percent of the mineral estate in the Powder River Basin, where tens of thousands of coal-bed methane wells have been drilled during the past decade.
BLM officials said earlier this year that the agency's oversight has failed to adequately protect the sage grouse and could help eradicate local grouse populations.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to decide before year's end whether to list the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act - a move that could have huge impacts on Wyoming's booming energy industry.
The sage grouse's estimated 160 million acres of existing sagebrush habitat across 11 Western states is half of the bird's historic range. The bird narrowly missed a federal listing in 2005, and new studies have outlined a grave situation for sage grouse in the Powder River Basin.
On Aug. 1, Freudenthal issued an executive order outlining the state's plan to protect the sage grouse in Wyoming. The order didn't have authority over the BLM and only applied to state agencies, but BLM officials said they would work cooperatively with the state's plan.
Freudenthal's executive order consists of 12 guidelines and a map of "core" sage grouse habitat areas where stipulations could be implemented. The order included a mandate for developers to demonstrate their proposed activity will result in no loss of sage grouse or sage grouse habitat.
Last week, the BLM proceeded with a planned oil and gas lease sale that included more than 50,000 acres within the state's identified core areas for sage grouse. However, the agency pulled, or "deferred," six of the 173 lease parcels from the sale so it could further analyze the development implications in some of those core areas. Most of the 173 leases were formally protested in June.
Hanson said the agency also "shelved" about 800 drilling permit applications during the summer months while developing the sage grouse strategy. He said permitting has resumed and the suspended permit applications have been prioritized for processing.
Last year, the BLM processed 2,953 coal-bed methane and natural gas permits in the Buffalo Field Office, under which about 1,500 wells were actually drilled in the basin.
"I believe that the majority of coal-bed methane development in the basin is going to be outside of these focus areas," Hanson said. "We don't believe (this) will have a significant effect on the economic viability of the coal-bed methane industry."
He anticipated the BLM will continue to process between 2,000 and 3,000 federal permits per year in the basin during the revision process.
"And we're working with individual industry partners to help prioritize those permits so that we're getting permits out to them that they think is the most important," Hanson said.
Reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.