Fury sprouts over agency’s failure to protect rare, local plant
By BOBBY MAGILL
The Daily Sentinel
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Raising the ire of conservationists, a rare plant that exists almost entirely within areas that have been leased for oil and gas development in Mesa and Garfield counties will not be protected under the Endangered Species Act in the foreseeable future, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday.
The agency said it doesn’t have enough information to add the De Beque milkvetch to the federal list of threatened and endangered species. The Colorado Native Plant Society and the Center for Native Ecosystems in Denver filed a petition in 2004 to have the plant protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Only 17 known De Beque milkvetch populations exist. Fourteen of them are found near De Beque, particularly on South Shale Ridge, and three populations exist at the base of the Roan Plateau near Rifle.
“We have an obligation to not drive species to extinction,” Erin Robertson, senior staff biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems, said Wednesday. “It’s just irresponsible to not conserve the plants and animals that we share the planet with. They should be easily accommodated.”
Al Pfister, western Colorado supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency’s responsibility is to determine whether the impacts of oil and gas development will threaten the existence of the milkvetch.
“We don’t have enough information to further consider it for listing” on the endangered species list because there’s not enough evidence energy development will obliterate the milkvetch, he said.
But the Center for Native Ecosystems contends the Fish and Wildlife Service was concerned that energy development will threaten the milkvetch based on the agency’s comments on an environmental assessment of the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to lease South Shale Ridge, which occurred in 2005.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release that because the conservation groups’ petition was filed three years ago, the BLM has added stipulations to many of its leases controlling the impacts of energy development near rare plant habitat.
Despite the fact it determined there’s too little information to protect the milkvetch under federal law, the news release said the Fish and Wildlife Service will work with the BLM to preserve and monitor the milkvetch.
But Robertson said that may not be enough. She cited an incident involving a Williams Production natural gas well pad under construction last month close to milkvetch habitat near Rifle. Heavy equipment there could have wiped out 600 of the plants, she said.
The BLM, she said, received a tip that Williams was already out there with heavy machinery without having erected fencing, which is required by the BLM, around the milkvetch habitat.
Indeed, the BLM issued an “incidence of noncompliance” notice to Williams on Jan. 26, saying the company hadn’t put up orange mesh fencing around the milkvetch plants before well pad construction began, a condition Williams agreed to meet for the BLM to approve the natural gas wells at the site.
According to the notice, the BLM required Williams to halt all construction on the well pad until it put up the fence. No other action was taken.
Heavy equipment did not damage the plants, Robertson said.
Here's a photo of the subject I took last spring:
By BOBBY MAGILL
The Daily Sentinel
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Raising the ire of conservationists, a rare plant that exists almost entirely within areas that have been leased for oil and gas development in Mesa and Garfield counties will not be protected under the Endangered Species Act in the foreseeable future, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday.
The agency said it doesn’t have enough information to add the De Beque milkvetch to the federal list of threatened and endangered species. The Colorado Native Plant Society and the Center for Native Ecosystems in Denver filed a petition in 2004 to have the plant protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Only 17 known De Beque milkvetch populations exist. Fourteen of them are found near De Beque, particularly on South Shale Ridge, and three populations exist at the base of the Roan Plateau near Rifle.
“We have an obligation to not drive species to extinction,” Erin Robertson, senior staff biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems, said Wednesday. “It’s just irresponsible to not conserve the plants and animals that we share the planet with. They should be easily accommodated.”
Al Pfister, western Colorado supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency’s responsibility is to determine whether the impacts of oil and gas development will threaten the existence of the milkvetch.
“We don’t have enough information to further consider it for listing” on the endangered species list because there’s not enough evidence energy development will obliterate the milkvetch, he said.
But the Center for Native Ecosystems contends the Fish and Wildlife Service was concerned that energy development will threaten the milkvetch based on the agency’s comments on an environmental assessment of the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to lease South Shale Ridge, which occurred in 2005.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release that because the conservation groups’ petition was filed three years ago, the BLM has added stipulations to many of its leases controlling the impacts of energy development near rare plant habitat.
Despite the fact it determined there’s too little information to protect the milkvetch under federal law, the news release said the Fish and Wildlife Service will work with the BLM to preserve and monitor the milkvetch.
But Robertson said that may not be enough. She cited an incident involving a Williams Production natural gas well pad under construction last month close to milkvetch habitat near Rifle. Heavy equipment there could have wiped out 600 of the plants, she said.
The BLM, she said, received a tip that Williams was already out there with heavy machinery without having erected fencing, which is required by the BLM, around the milkvetch habitat.
Indeed, the BLM issued an “incidence of noncompliance” notice to Williams on Jan. 26, saying the company hadn’t put up orange mesh fencing around the milkvetch plants before well pad construction began, a condition Williams agreed to meet for the BLM to approve the natural gas wells at the site.
According to the notice, the BLM required Williams to halt all construction on the well pad until it put up the fence. No other action was taken.
Heavy equipment did not damage the plants, Robertson said.
Here's a photo of the subject I took last spring:
