The saga of the greater sage-grouse management plan amendments has come to an end.
On March 14 and 15, the BLM released six “Record of Decisions” (RODs) on amendments to resource management plans for the greater sage-grouse in seven different Western states.
“Months of close coordination and cooperation with state governments in Wyoming, Nevada, California, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado has gone into the development of today’s decision,” said Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt in the BLM’s announcement of the decisions on March 15.
The decisions detail amendments made to the sage-grouse plans originally issued in 2015. The 2015 plans were part of the process that kept the greater sage-grouse from being listed under the Endangered Species Act. Since then, governors of seven of the 11 sage-grouse states requested review and changes be made to the plans.
In general, the RODs outline changes to the different states’ plans with the goal being more flexibility. Though the documents outline numerous state-specific changes, in summary they removed the “SFA” (sagebrush focal area) designation and its associated special treatment, noted that compensatory mitigation cannot be required, inserted language to highlight the value of targeted grazing to reduce fuel loads and manage rangelands for sage-grouse friendly plant communities, and identify threats to sage-grouse such as predators and invasive woody plants.
Why the change?
Ethan Lane, executive director of the Public Lands Council, explained to WLJ that poor on-the-ground application of details in the 2015 plans led in part to the amendment effort finalized on March 15.
“The concern has been BLM staff on the ground using that habitat objective table at too fine a scale, down at the allotment level or permit level—that’s not acceptable and that’s not what was intended,” he explained.
The habitat objective table was a feature of the 2015 plans which listed tangible markers for the health of sage-grouse habitats. The hated “7-inch stubble height requirement” came from something similar in a Forest Service plan. In general, the March 15 RODs got rid of that sort of excessively rigid objective, but Lane pointed out the complicated nature of the decisions.
“Each one of the state plans addresses the use of the entire habitat objectives table,” he said. “So, these plans make progress towards further clarifying what not to do with the habitat objectives table, and that is use it at a fine scale for grazing decisions.”
Lane stressed that the March 15 announcement “isn’t new business. They didn’t throw the plans out. This is an evolution of the 2015 plans in order to make sure they’re getting the right management on the ground to target the key threats to the [sage-grouse] like wildfire and invasive species.”
He added that the changes were subtle and, while not perfect, still progress.
“We think, at the least, [the RODs are] going to result in better decision making on grazing in sage-grouse country. It’s going to be a much clearer direction for us [when] having these conversations about grazing decisions,” he said.
This position was not shared by Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the Western Values Project, a nonprofit group generally opposed to grazing on public lands.
“Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and the Trump administration broke their deal with the West by scrapping the last administration’s bipartisan plans,” O’Neill said in the group’s response to the RODs. He further characterized the amendments as putting sage-grouse on “a fast-track to an endangered species listing” as well as pandering to oil and gas interests.
“The changes were rigged from the outset at the behest of the same special interests and oil and gas groups that Bernhardt represented as a lobbyist, while ignoring the concerns of former Western governors and the over a half-a-million voices that asked them to honor the original deal. Western states and communities are now left to try to fill the void in a future that is now shrouded in uncertainty.”
Final amendments
Each of the six RODs outline state-specific changes to the 2015 plans. The documents themselves range in length from a few dozen pages to almost 200. The extent and specificity of the amendments cannot be adequately summarized here. However, there are some general changes that existed across all six RODS that are likely of interest to ranchers. They include:
• Habitat Designations: The 2015 plans included the “sagebrush focal area” or SFA designation. The amended plans remove this and use a two-tiered system of Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA) and General Habitat Management Areas (GHMA). The former is the more sensitive of the two, being managed to avoid and minimize further disturbance of key sage-grouse habitat features such as leks, nesting grounds, and feeding areas during important reproductive times. There is more management flexibility afforded to GHMAs than to PHMAs. According to the BLM, over 29 million acres of BLM-administered sagebrush-steppe fall under the PHMA designation, and another 23 million acres fall under the GHMA designation.
• Compensatory Mitigation: All the RODs contain some element like this portion of the Colorado ROD: “The BLM has determined that [the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA)] does not explicitly mandate or authorize the BLM to require public land users to implement compensatory mitigation as a condition of obtaining authorization for the use of BLM-administered lands. Consistent with that determination, compensatory mitigation must be voluntary unless required by other applicable laws.” Compensatory mitigation refers to “the restoration, establishment, enhancement, or in certain circumstances preservation of” habitats according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Grazing is good for fire, plant management: Most of the RODs highlight changed or new language that frames well-managed grazing as part of successful conservation for the sage-grouse. For example, the Oregon ROD notes that, “The USFWS found that well-managed grazing practices can be compatible with sagebrush ecosystems and greater sage-grouse persistence.” Grazing is referenced repeatedly in different state management decision amendments as a useful tool for fire mitigation, managing invasive plants, and achieving desired plant communities and distributions for sage-grouse. Wildfire in particular is noted as a threat to sage-grouse habitat.
• Conifer/Juniper removal: The removal and mitigation of conifer/juniper encroachment into the sagebrush steppe habitat was noted as a management priority in several of the RODS. Removal of tall conifers that support predator nests (i.e., corvids and raptors) near leks and nesting grounds was listed as a priority.
If you are interested in specific changes for your state, visit blm.gov/programs/fish-and-wildlife/sage-grouse to read the “2019 Greater Sage-Grouse Plan Amendments.” From there, you can navigate to the state-specific documents. — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
