A federal appeals court has ordered the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to go back and reasses the impact of the 700-mile Ruby Pipeline on nine endangered fish species and sensitive sagebrush.The court said the federal agencies violated both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in approving the natural gas pipeline from Wyoming to southern Oregon.

The Center, which appealed the decision to approve the pipeline to the 9th Circuit, said that with the court decision, "these rare fish will be better protected, and the public won’t have to bear the whole cost of the pipeline’s destructive impacts.”

The court also decided that Ruby and the Fish and Wildlife Service never fully considered the impacts caused by the developers withdrawing millions of gallons of groundwater along the pipeline route for testing and dust abatement. The pipeline builder promised voluntary mitigations for the damaged fish habitat, but those mitigations were not required and were not fully funded. The court concluded that relying on voluntary measures that may or may not occur is a clear violation of the law.

Nevada Wilderness Project Executive Director Jeneane Harter, praised the court decision, noting that the Ruby gas pipeline damaged hundreds of miles of sagebrush habitats and fragmented wildlife habitats and streams. "We're hoping now that these original federal restoration and mitigation requirements will be strengthened and enforced," she said.

The Greater Sage-grouse and the Bi-state Sage-grouse found along the Nevada-California border are on a list of “candidate species” that warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.  Although the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found that a listing was precluded due to higher-priority actions, a court-approved settlement agreement between the federal government and environmental groups requires that a final determination on the bi-state bird be made by September 2013 and a decision on the Great Sage-grouse by September 2015.

A listing would have a profound impact on the West’s economy, bringing new regulation to most activities on public lands, from recreation to mining and grazing.

The latest report identifies key nesting and breeding grounds in 11 Western states that call for special protection efforts. The report also calls for land managers to rapidly pull together “clear mechanisms” for slowing down threats to the sage-grouse. Those threats include the loss of its sagebrush habitat to development, fire and other factors.

The report also recommends closer monitoring of the bird’s numbers and recommends federal and state governments increase funding to restore the bird’s sagebrush habitat.

Another report is due in more than a year from the Bureau of Land Management, whose “National Greater Sage Grouse Planning Strategy" will examine the 47 million acres of federally owned grouse habitat in 10 states. This policy is expected to incorporate scores of resource management plans across the West.

Officially called the McGinness Hills Geothermal Development Project and located north of Austin, the facility, its wells and the nine mile long powerline connecting the generator to the NV Energy’s Frontier substation, exist within important sage-grouse habitat between the Simpson Park Mountains and the Toiyabe Range.

Construction of the project was approved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in July, 2011 and subsequently by the US Forest Service, which administers some of the land under the project footprint.   The Environmental Assessment and subsequent approval required measures for the mitigation of anticipated project impacts upon the greater sage-grouse within the Toiyabe Population Management Unit (PMU) – a geographic designation created under the auspices of the State’s Sage-grouse Conservation Plan. This agreement established the funding to support the monitoring and mitigation plan in the amount of just over $600,000

The Monitoring and Mitigation Plan required Ormat to conduct acoustic monitoring during the sage-grouse breeding season to measure noise levels caused by the plant as detected at the four leks nearest the project.  This data is being analyzed presently.  Ormat also funded a study by the U.S. Geological Survey to track the movements of grouse captured at strutting grounds near the geothermal site.  Also, the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has been monitoring sage-grouse brood production in the area for seven decades and has compiled contemporary tracking data from birds residing in the Simpson Park Mountains to the east.  All of this data will have an important role in determining how best to affect conservation on the ground.

Decisions on how to spend such large amounts of money must be derived through careful consideration.  To do this, BLM’s Battle Mountain District has assembled a team of experts who are tasked to evaluate the resources of the area and propose projects that would improve the condition of the Toiyabe PMU’s sage-grouse population.  Called the Wildlife Working Group, BLM’s Tim Coward shepherds a group comprised of BLM and NDOW employees and representatives of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Ormat staff are on the team as are representatives of the Sierra Club and Nevada Wilderness Project, the latter two organizations specifically requested to stand for the conservation community.  The Group will be joined by the local grazing permittee in short order.

The purpose of group is to wisely determine the most effective use of Ormat’s mitigation fund.   A portion of the funding is specifically identified for riparian project implementation.  Riparian areas are those portions of the landscape where water is near or upon the ground surface and supports a more diverse vegetative community.  Here sage-grouse hens and their poults can find protein-rich forbs and insects required for growth as well as cover needed to evade predators.  NDOW has stated that the first priority for mitigation should be toward projects that enhance, restore, or improve riparian habitat in order to positively affect production and survival. In order to demonstrate mitigation fidelity to the site itself, the group seeks to locate projects in close proximity to the geothermal project but outside a 2-mile buffer of the project.

Biologists have identified the primary limiting factor for the Toiyabe PMU’s grouse population is the lack of undisturbed sage-grouse brood rearing habitat and based upon the observations made by the Wildlife Working Group during a recent field trip most of the riparian habitat is in poor shape, with much of it possibly beyond recovery.

Projects such as fencing to exclude livestock grazing are under consideration.  Exclosures are an important and often-used tool and one fenced-in area that has been in place for decades clearly demonstrates how much vegetative growth can occur even under the meager surface flow.  See the photograph of NDOW’s Jeremy Lutz standing in knee high rye grass inside the Willow Creek exclosure.

Ormat has also installed line outriggers off of the power poles that are specially designed to deter perching by ravens and other aerial predators.  These predatory birds are known to exploit human-made structures to enhance their capability to locate nesting hens.

The Wildlife Working Group is just another example of how varied interest groups that have had traditionally divergent perspectives are drawn together to seek a common solution to conserve the sage-grouse, a species which could be warranted for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  By demonstrating a sincere attempt to improve the habitat for sage-grouse, the administrative action under ESA may be deferred and Nevadans can continue to work hard to solve Nevada’s problems.

• University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Video Classroom, 1085 Fairgrounds Road, Winnemucca
• Great Basin College High Tech Center, Room 120 (HTC 120), 1290 Burns Road, Elko
• University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Conference Room, 995 Campton St, Ely

The Nevada Wilderness Project last week attended a briefing session sponsored by the Governor’s office to hear federal and state regulators reassure state officials, citizens and stakeholders that they are working hard to prevent the sage grouse from being declared an endangered species.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2010 that an Endangered Species Act listing was warranted for the sage grouse. But its listing was precluded because the government felt other species were more endangered.

Even before that ruling, the NWP was working to bring various agencies and stakeholders together to find solutions to the problems plaguing the bird, including wildfire, pinyon-juniper encroachment, infrastructure development, disease and other issues. NWP staff wildlife biologist Gregg Tanner has been working on this issue since 2000, when he was with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, and has continued this effort since joining NWP.

Gregg, NWP Executive Director Jeneane Harter, and NWP Conservation Director John Tull all attended the briefing session. Representatives from mining, ranching, farming and energy development, as well as various state and federal agencies, were also on hand in the crowded legislative hearing room in Carson City.

“I came away with the impression that people are beginning to pay attention,” Gregg said. “People are beginning to understand that we can’t tromp on the sage grouse.”

An Endangered Species Act listing would bring a wide variety of activities on public lands in Nevada to a halt, potentially including mining, renewable energy development and other activities. This issue is much broader than Nevada, however; the greater sage grouse population stretches across 11 Western States, and the bistate sage grouse population along the Nevada and California is particularly imperiled.

NWP will be involved as a catalyst to bring groups together to develop ambitious conservation plans that will prevent the bird from being listed.