Buying Their Way Around The Impacts They Cause
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
At a recent meeting of Nevada’s Sage Grouse Conservation working group, the details were presented on the $8.8 Million given to the Nevada Department of Wildlife by the company involved in building the Ruby Natural Gas Pipeline. When you add this to the other payments made to purchase “good will” and the ability to carve a 680 mile swath across some very critical habitat for Sage Grouse – you start getting into some serious dough.
I suppose in the long-run it is just the cost of doing business and those who will be provided natural gas will be the ones picking up the tab for the total cost of construction and the extortion costs associated with making the project happen. On the other hand we are seeing more and more energy-related projects that involve federally-managed lands, in Sage Grouse country, that there’s a cost being paid by a group not involved with causing the project’s negative impact to the habitat. That group are livestock grazing permit owners.
It goes like this… The land managers and the biologists of whatever agency evaluate how a project is going to damage habitat or cause negative consequences for Sage Grouse. As a species teetering on the brink of being listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act, everybody is walking on egg-shells (although not Sage Grouse egg-shells because that would really be a problem – especially, if they hadn’t hatched first) and diligently devoting their work to conservation work. Federal land managers have publicly committed themselves to a “do no harm” – “no loss of core habitat” – etc. So this project is going to happen smack-dab in the middle of the ground the agencies have said won’t be harmed and by doing the project the harm is going to happen in a very big way.
Solution! Get rid of the cows… Problem solved! Of course along with the other stuff that is needed you also have to pay off the wildlife agencies and others who might attempt to use Sage Grouse as their excuse to shut your project down.
Livestock grazing, when properly managed, is actually a positive impact to Sage Grouse habitat. Proper management of livestock grazing is a whole lot more likely than the “management” federal land managers are doing with their responsibilities for Wild Horses. It isn’t too far fetched to make the case that ranchers grazing livestock on the federal lands are the ONLY interests being required to carry out their activities with stringent management requirements and consequences for not meeting those obligations.
But given the bias of many federal land managers and wildlife biologists against livestock grazing and the driver seat they find themselves in, relative to having the ability to significantly effect a major project – “sure you’re project can trash the habitat of these species…just make sure the cows are gone in the process.” Throw in the “blood money” to “enhance habitat” and pay for further agency real estate acquisitions and it’s all good to do whatever you need to do.
Using curtailment of livestock grazing as a mitigation activity is not a justifiable action and should only be pursued in situations where livestock grazing is doing the damage that needs correction. It isn’t acceptable in many of the applications being considered for development impacts.
At a recent meeting of Nevada’s Sage Grouse Conservation working group, the details were presented on the $8.8 Million given to the Nevada Department of Wildlife by the company involved in building the Ruby Natural Gas Pipeline. When you add this to the other payments made to purchase “good will” and the ability to carve a 680 mile swath across some very critical habitat for Sage Grouse – you start getting into some serious dough.
I suppose in the long-run it is just the cost of doing business and those who will be provided natural gas will be the ones picking up the tab for the total cost of construction and the extortion costs associated with making the project happen. On the other hand we are seeing more and more energy-related projects that involve federally-managed lands, in Sage Grouse country, that there’s a cost being paid by a group not involved with causing the project’s negative impact to the habitat. That group are livestock grazing permit owners.
It goes like this… The land managers and the biologists of whatever agency evaluate how a project is going to damage habitat or cause negative consequences for Sage Grouse. As a species teetering on the brink of being listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act, everybody is walking on egg-shells (although not Sage Grouse egg-shells because that would really be a problem – especially, if they hadn’t hatched first) and diligently devoting their work to conservation work. Federal land managers have publicly committed themselves to a “do no harm” – “no loss of core habitat” – etc. So this project is going to happen smack-dab in the middle of the ground the agencies have said won’t be harmed and by doing the project the harm is going to happen in a very big way.
Solution! Get rid of the cows… Problem solved! Of course along with the other stuff that is needed you also have to pay off the wildlife agencies and others who might attempt to use Sage Grouse as their excuse to shut your project down.
Livestock grazing, when properly managed, is actually a positive impact to Sage Grouse habitat. Proper management of livestock grazing is a whole lot more likely than the “management” federal land managers are doing with their responsibilities for Wild Horses. It isn’t too far fetched to make the case that ranchers grazing livestock on the federal lands are the ONLY interests being required to carry out their activities with stringent management requirements and consequences for not meeting those obligations.
But given the bias of many federal land managers and wildlife biologists against livestock grazing and the driver seat they find themselves in, relative to having the ability to significantly effect a major project – “sure you’re project can trash the habitat of these species…just make sure the cows are gone in the process.” Throw in the “blood money” to “enhance habitat” and pay for further agency real estate acquisitions and it’s all good to do whatever you need to do.
Using curtailment of livestock grazing as a mitigation activity is not a justifiable action and should only be pursued in situations where livestock grazing is doing the damage that needs correction. It isn’t acceptable in many of the applications being considered for development impacts.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 10/22/2010 3:11 PM 
Categories: Public Lands
Tags: Public Land Livestock Grazing Nevada Energy Development Projects Sage Grouse Habitat Impacts
Categories: Public Lands
Tags: Public Land Livestock Grazing Nevada Energy Development Projects Sage Grouse Habitat Impacts
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