Issues
NMFS Will Decide on Bryde’s Whale ESA Listing. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published a 90-day finding on a petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to list the Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s Whale as an endangered distinct population segment (DPS) under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Bryde’s whale population resides off the Florida panhandle and is the only resident group of whales in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the notice, NMFS has concluded that the listing petition provided sufficient evidence of the species’ condition to warrant the agency making a formal determination of whether ESA protection is needed. The notice identifies several factors that allegedly are contributing to the whale’s declining populations including acoustic stress, collisions with ship traffic, and offshore oil development. NMFS has set a 60-day public comment period during which it will receive information to help inform whether to propose a threatened or endangered listing for the whale, or to make a “not warranted” determination.
FWS Proposes ESA Listing for Crayfish. In response to a 12-month review of a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has published notice of its proposal to list the Big Sandy and Guyandotte River crayfish, both native to the Appalachian region, as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The public comment period will close June 8th and the Service plans to make a final decision by April 2016.
The proposal could have a negative impact on the regional coal industry, as well as timber harvesting and commercial development. Listing the two species under the ESA would also likely affect mountaintop-removal coal mining, a practice that FWS called an “immediate threat to the continued existence of the Guyandotte River crayfish.” FWS points to sedimentation in streams resulting from runoff from unpaved oil and gas access roads as another factor.
Lesser Prairie-Chicken Habitat Protections Will Not Delay Oil and Gas Drilling. Oil and natural gas companies operating in areas of the southern Great Plains will not be subject to lesser prairie-chicken permanent habitat conservation requirements for two more years, according to a letter by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Following a request for delay by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA), which released its annual prairie chicken progress report earlier this week, Service Director Dan Ashe wrote in a letter that drillers may delay efforts to permanently conserve 25 percent of their mitigation land.
The WAFWA report cites significant progress in protecting the lesser prairie chicken across the species’ five-state range, including a total population increase of more than 3,600 birds to around 22,400 as a result of measures such as paying landowners nearly $3 million to implement temporary conservation activities. This plan, according to WAFWA, “allowed for economic development to continue in a seamless manner by providing an efficient mechanism to voluntarily conserve the LPC and/or comply with the ESA
The prairie chicken was listed as threatened in March 2014. A proposed amendment to the January’s Keystone XL pipeline bill that would have delisted the bird did not move forward.
In the News
Bat-Preservation Rules Rile Industry. Wall Street Journal. A recent federal decision to list the northern long-eared bat as a threatened species has come under fire from industry groups, which say new regulations will raise costs for businesses in more than two dozen states without addressing the disease that is decimating the flying mammals. “The agency itself has acknowledged that industry is not the culprit of the bat’s demise, it is this fungal disease,” said Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “The fact that we’re being punished for something that we’re not really causing is cause for alarm for our industry and many others.”
Bat species common to Pennsylvania threatened by disease. Associated Press. The Independent Petroleum Association of American has commented on the bat’s threatened designation, but it may not file comments on the accompanying environmental rules, spokesman Neal Kirby said. He said that’s because the bat’s habitat isn’t affected as much by drilling as it is by the fungus, and other industries, like timbering.
Major Pennsylvania bat species ‘threatened’ due to disease. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said the industry submitted four rounds of comments against the listing of the bat, but hasn’t decided yet if it will file comments on the interim rules. He said the footprint of the oil and gas habitat on bat habitat is much less than that of forest management and other industries, and that the greatest threat to the bat is from the fungus, not human activities, like oil and gas development. “Rather than listing the bat and limiting development, the Fish and Wildlife Service should work toward finding a solution to this deadly disease, while ensuring energy development, environmental stewardship, species conservation and economic growth can thrive together across the nation,” said association vice president Dan Naatz in a statement released by the industry trade group last week.
Critics: Bat’s ‘threatened’ listing could threaten loggers. Bradford Era. U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., reacted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to grant “threatened” status to the northern long-eared bat on Wednesday, saying the move threatens to “lock up lands and impede commerce” by restricting some logging and tree removal operations within the animal’s habitat. Dan Naatz, senior vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, echoed Thompson in telling the AP that “Rather than listing the bat and limiting development, the Fish and Wildlife Service should work toward finding a solution to this deadly disease, while ensuring energy development, environmental stewardship, species conservation, and economic growth can thrive together across the nation.”
Shell has major hurdles to clear before Chukchi drilling resumes. Alaska Dispatch News. There is a legal cloud over the existing oil spill plan, even though it was recently renewed. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a challenge to BSEE’s 2012 approval. U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline upheld BSEE’s decision, but the environmental plaintiffs appealed. The appeals court heard oral arguments last August in Anchorage. The plaintiffs claim BSEE too readily accepted Shell’s assurances that it could recover almost all of any spilled oil, glossed over the untested nature of spill response techniques described in the plan, skipped required Endangered Species Act protections and failed to probe deeply enough to determine whether Shell’s plan ensures “the availability of private personnel and equipment necessary to remove to the maximum extent practicable a worst case discharge,” as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires.
Greens challenge Forest Service plan for grouse population in Nev., Calif. E&E News (sub req’d). A coalition of conservation groups has filed a flurry of administrative challenges to a Forest Service plan designed to protect a subpopulation of greater sage grouse in and around the largest national forest in the continental United States. Four separate objections have been filed in the past five days by the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, the Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians. The groups announced that the objections had been filed in a joint news release late yesterday.