Petroleum Pipeline Threat to Wild Horses and Sage Grouse
by moth
13 June 2010
[Updated June 19 with related stories] Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary, has exposed his sullied hands in this scandal, brought to our attention by Culture Change correspondent moth. He knows intimately the sagebrush ecosystem and has been monitoring pipeline proposals and water issues in Nevada.
Why is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) forcibly removing Nevada's wild horses?
Is the reason the Ruby Pipeline connections?
The proposed pipeline for delivering natural gas from Wyoming to Malin,
Oregon appears to be the primary motivating factor behind recent BLM decisions
to forcibly remove wild horses from large parts of their habitat.
Am scrambling to try to get the BLM to delay the El Paso
corporation's proposed Ruby Pipeline. This would cross sage grouse habitat -- an accident could really louse
up some pristine watersheds. They are planning on beginning construction
in July 2010 following BLM approval.
This is different from the other (water) pipeline from Snake Valley
aquifers to Las Vegas. So now there are two pipelines to fight in Nevada!
The background-article below is a few months old, though remains relevant
to the debates
about risks posed by the proposed Ruby Pipeline. And the email address provided for comments should still be effective.
There's more going on that the obvious threat to wild horses, sage grouse
and other species of the sage highlands, from this natural gas
pipeline: the recent explosion of a natural gas pipeline near Dallas, Texas
should remind us of our wisdom in rushing to dig another pipeline through
pristine habitat. A few short term jobs do not justify the long term
destruction of the sage ecosystems.
The Real Reason Behind BLM’s Push to Remove Wild Horses: Is Ruby Pipeline
the Smoking Gun?
Wild horse advocates question pipeline's involvement in
massive removals of wild horses on public land.
Denver, CO (January 7, 2010) - The Cloud Foundation asks the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) to reveal the truth behind removing healthy wild horses
from the Calico Complex of northwestern Nevada. It does not appear to be
coincidental that the multi-billion dollar corporate project, the Ruby
Pipeline, would run through the Calico Complex -- site of the controversial
roundup of more than 2,500 mustangs and the Buckhorn Wild Horse Herd
Management Area. BLM removed over 200 wild horses at Buckhorn in December
2009 without public notice.
Director of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has told members of the public that
the horses will starve if not removed because there is nothing for them to
eat. The Director of the BLM, Bob Abbey, also supported Salazar’s claim
when he stated this week that horses are being removed “to restore an
ecological balance” even though this claim is nullified by numerous
experts including a biodiversity science specialist with 8 years
experience in the range, and the sworn testimony of BLM employees Eckel and
Drake. Abbey went on to reassert the BLM policy position that “we will
need to continue removing excess wild horses from the public rangelands in
areas where the land can no longer support them.”
Yet, documents recently received by The Cloud Foundation from biologist
Katie Fite of Western Watersheds and researcher Cindy MacDonald (publisher
of the American Herds blog) today expose what may be the real reasons
behind the massive, dead of winter wild horse roundups -- and they have
nothing to do with horse or rangeland health -- but may have everything to do
with the Ruby Pipeline.
In a written response to questions posed by the Office of Energy Projects
(an agency within the Department of Energy), a Ruby natural gas pipeline
project consultant, Dan Gredvig, stated that “Ruby will work with BLM to
minimize wild horse and burro grazing along the restored ROW
(right-of-way) for three years. Possible management actions would be to... reduce wild horse populations following BLM policy in appropriate
management areas. BLM wild horse and burro specialists were consulted in
developing this management approach.” The document is dated February 23,
2009.
It appears that the public’s wild horses are being removed at taxpayer
expense on publicly owned land to make way for a multi-billion dollar
pipeline constructed by El Paso Natural Gas Corporation of Colorado
Springs, Colorado. Natural gas and water would ultimately provide added
resources to California and other destinations. Given these new
revelations, the public has the right to ask several key questions and get
immediate answers to them: 1) Who really stands to profit from removing
wild horses from public lands? 2) What private contractors, possible
politicians, and/or agency bureaucrats stand to benefit from the yet
undisclosed details of the Ruby Project? 3) Why has the public been
excluded from any discussion of this undisclosed use of taxpayer public
lands?
“I don’t think it is out of line to seek immediate responses to these
questions. The public has a right to know what is happening to their
public lands and to the future of their wild horses, especially when it
comes at taxpayer expense,” said Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive
Director, The Cloud Foundation (named for the famous wild horse Kathrens
has documented for the PBS/Nature television series).
According to a Western Watersheds report this is the largest project of
its type across significant public lands in the American West in recent
memory. Ruby has seized upon a sliver of ecologically critical unprotected
public wild land to punch a new corridor through, and bisect this
irreplaceable landscape, including many of the last viable herds of wild
horses in the West.
“The roundups in the Ruby Pipeline zone are questionable,” states Katie
Fite, biologist and biodiversity specialist. “The public is not being told
the truth. There needs to be an investigation within all levels of BLM
considering the unavoidable damage to our public lands. There is no
mitigation provided for to restore this biologically wild, remote, and
untrammeled landscape in northwestern Nevada and southeastern Oregon.”
Wild horse advocates and concerned Colorado citizens will be gathering to
protest in downtown Denver on Thursday January 7 from 12:00-2:00pm in
front of Senator Mark Udall’s office building (999 Eighteenth Street,
North Tower). Kathrens will address the crowd and press at noon. The group
will be asking the Senator to help halt the Bureau of Land Management’s
(BLM’s) massive roundup of wild horses currently living in the half
million acre Calico Mountain Complex area in NW Nevada.
Toiyabe Chapter Sierra Club asks FERC for a rehearing, gives reasons why they
support the "no action" option, as in build no pipeline!
The Ruby Pipeline proposed route crosses critical habitat in
many places in Nevada and especially in the northeast and northwest
portions. Further, the pipeline goes cross-country and does not follow
existing roads or established utility corridors. It would create a new
corridor in currently wild and open lands throughout Nevada where most
access is via jeep trails or, at best, dirt roads.
Ruby Pipeline, LLC, could not have picked an environmentally worse route
across Nevada than the proposed route.
The Sierra Club submitted its comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission's (FERC) draft Environmental Impact Statement August 7, 2009.
The Chapter strongly supported the no action alternative and opposed the
proposed route because it would permanently destroy pristine sagebrush
ecosystems. Comments on the disappointing final EIS were submitted on
February 15, 2010.
The proposed pipeline route would cross critical wildlife and wild lands
on the southern boundary of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in
northwestern Nevada, cut through a portion of the Black Rock High Rock
Emigrant Trail National Conservation Area and border the Summit Lake
Paiute Reservation in northwestern Nevada. Comments on the inadequate
mitigation plan and voluntary conservation agreements not made public
until mid-December were filed with FERC on February 3, 2010."
People can still contact the BLM and ask them to delay the Ruby Pipeline
project for at least one year until further studies can show an actual
need for increased natural gas demand and also effective mitigation
measures for all the miles of habitat the pipeline construction will
destroy in the excavation process.
Wouldn't most people prefer the labor resources used for more appropriate
projects like local biomethane anaerobic digesters for each community,
county and town that requests it? This is the true path to sustainability
and energy independence, otherwise the pipeline owners will decide how
much to charge for their natural gas depending on what they can get for
it. Natural gas remains financially unreliable and physically unstable.
Biomethane would result in more permanent jobs than the short term jobs of
the Ruby Pipeline.
Here's a quick note to the BLM in Nevada asking them to delay the proposed
Ruby Pipeline for at least one year until some other options can be
considered:
Greetings,
I am writing as a last minute request that the BLM decide to delay the
proposed Ruby Pipeline Project. There are several reasons the BLM should
delay this project until effective mitigation can be achieved.
Furthermore, a demand needs to exist for justification of such
expenditures!
Several indigenous nations residing within Nevada have voiced strong
objections to the Ruby Pipeline's current route. The Summit Lake Paiute
objected to the disruption of their home, as the pipeline crosses several
of their sacred sites.
From an environmental perspective, the Ruby Pipeline's proposed route is
cutting directly through some of the last pristine habitat for the
sage grouse. The sage grouse leks (a lek is an open
area that sage grouse males use for their display dances for courting
females, a performance of much wing flapping and puffing out of
yellow throat sacs) would be negatively effected by pipeline
construction, and there is no effective mitigation supplied in their EIR
to alleviate the loss of habitat.
The forced removal of wild horses by BLM order appears to be in direct
correlation with the pipeline construction's start date of July 2010. This
rush by El Paso corporation to dig the trench appears suspect also. Was
the quick removal of the wild horses by the BLM done to meet certain
objectives and avoid any further potential delays for El Paso corporation?
The proposed Ruby Pipeline route also crosses near several watersheds,
including Thousand Spring Creek in Elko County. In 2008 a 6.0 magnitude
earthquake occurred only 14 miles from the pipeline's proposed crossing at
HD Summit north of Wells on the 93 Highway. What would happen if another
earthquake ruptured the pipeline near the headwaters of Thousand Springs
Creek? This and many other potential disasters are unaddressed in the EIS.
Following recent oil spill in the Gulf and the recent natural gas line
explosion in Dallas, TX, it seems that we would be better off following
the precautionary principle and go back to the drawing board to try some
better planning.
I am strongly urging the BLM to consider delaying the proposed Ruby Pipeline
project for at least one year's time to consider other options.
Thank you for your concern,
[signed, with address]
Please send your letter via email to
nvsoweb [at] nv.blm.gov
Ask for one year's delay!
* * * * *
Related Reading:
Utah Oil Pipeline of Chevron Bursts, Oiling Birds
"...Chevron shut down the pipeline just before 8 a.m. after the
Fire Department notified the company of the spill.
By then, oil had reached Liberty Park's pond, drenching Canada geese and
Mallard ducks. At least 150 birds were rescued from the pond and taken to
Hogle Zoo to be cleaned. Some were goslings and chicks as young as a week
old.
Birds were cleaned up to three times in "kiddie pools" with water and Dawn
dish soap, said Nancy Carpenter, director of the zoo's animal health
services. The birds will be released at a new location by state wildlife
workers."
Sage grouse mating habits: Prairie chickens also mate this way. This is from an
online encyclopedia:
"Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are large, chicken-like
birds found in sagebrush habitats in the western United States. They are
the largest North American grouse – males weigh up to 7 lbs – and are
known for the impressive aggregations of displaying males at traditional
mating sites (leks). Recently, the decline of these charismatic birds has
been associated with the loss or degradation of sagebrush habitats.
Sage-grouse are grayish-brown with dark bellies and long, pointed tails.
Males have black throats and white breasts, while females have white
throats and grayish-brown breasts. Males are also about twenty-five
percent longer than females and roughly twice as heavy.
These birds are closely associated with sagebrush species (genus
Artemisia), which they require for food and cover. Unlike other
chicken-like birds, they lack muscular gizzards for grinding hard items,
so they must eat relatively soft foods. In winter they eat almost entirely
sagebrush leaves. Breeding hens and chicks eat many non-woody plants and
insects, and, in summer, hens may seek out relatively moist habitats that
provide an abundance of these foods.
The species is found in the northern two thirds of Nevada and is most
common in the northern and east-central parts of the state. Recent studies
show that the population of sage-grouse found in Lyon County and adjacent
eastern California is genetically distinct from all other populations of
the species, although this population may not be distinct enough in other
ways to warrant recognition as a separate species.
Greater Sage-Grouse mate on leks, which are open sites away from nesting
areas where males congregate year after year to court females. Leks
monitored in Nevada from 2000 to 2003 averaged fifteen males each, but the
largest leks can have hundreds of males. As with other lekking species,
Greater Sage-Grouse males do not provide any parental care; females mate
on the lek and then leave to nest and raise the young on their own.
Male Sage-Grouse perform their striking displays on leks from late winter
through spring, with most of the activity occurring around sunrise each
day. In displaying, a male erects dark plumes on the top of his head,
forms a fan with his long, pointed tail feathers (in the manner of a
peacock) and inflates a pair of yellow air sacs, which protrude
conspicuously through the breast feathers during the display. He then
throws his head back rapidly while deflating the air sacs, producing a
low-pitched "plopping" sound. Females choose mates based on several
criteria, including the quality of the "plopping." A few males obtain
almost all the mates, and most males on a lek never mate at all in a given
year.
Before the late 1800s, Greater Sage-Grouse were much more widespread and
abundant than they are now; for instance, a report from Wyoming in 1886
describes flights of thousands of sage-grouse, a description that would
not apply anywhere today. In the last forty years, censuses at leks have
documented an overall decline of about fifty percent. Sage-grouse numbers
in Nevada have decreased over this period, although apparently not as
drastically as for the species as a whole. The decline has been attributed
to (1) habitat destruction by conversion to agricultural land; (2) habitat
degradation due to grazing, human-caused changes in the frequency and
intensity of fires and associated increases in invasive plants; and (3)
hunting and poaching. For many people concerned with the preservation of
natural environments, the decline of the Greater Sage-Grouse has come to
symbolize the loss and degradation of sagebrush habitats."
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