CBM industry fears grouse listing
By The Associated Presss
Sunday, June 6, 2004 1:59 PM MDT
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) -- Talk about protecting sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act is worrying the coal-bed methane industry.
The industry has been benefiting from good news over the past year or so. Drilling permits are again being issued after they were suspended during an environmental study, and gas prices are climbing out of a slump.
But the industry stands to lose if sage grouse are federally protected. "Anywhere where there's sagebrush habitat, any industrial activity in that area will be curbed," Devon Energy spokesman Todd Ennenga said.
In April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that there is not enough evidence to consider protecting sage grouse under the act.
That announcement triggered a period for states to prove that enough conservation efforts are already in place to make the federal listing unnecessary.
People in the methane industry say it accounts for only a small fraction of the many factors responsible for the West's declining numbers of sage grouse -- especially when precautions are taken. Others agree.
"If you could remotely sensor your wells, bury the power lines and then pull out, then there's very little impact," Bert Jellison, habitat biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said at the sixth annual Coal-bed Methane Education Fair in Gillette on Friday.
"Many producers are doing that, but then there's always a percentage that aren't."
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management encourages companies to protect sage grouse habitat by consolidating their roads, gas pipelines, water pipelines and power lines into shared corridors.
Jellison said the industry should follow that advice so it does not disturb more habitat than it has to. Buried power lines are better than standing ones, for instance, because sage grouse tend to avoid tall structures where predators can perch.
He also suggested that, since companies are already required to reseed disturbed land, they should plant species favorable to sage grouse. They include plants with showy flowers called forbs, which produce seeds that birds like to eat.
"The cattle will want to eat them, the deer and antelope want to eat them and so do the sage grouse," he said.
But sage grouse might be facing a new threat in West Nile virus. Researchers documented a handful of sage grouse deaths due to West Nile last year.
Suspicion immediately turned to coal-bed methane drilling, which pumps groundwater to the surface and creates new areas where mosquitoes -- a carrier of the virus -- can breed. Research is continuing to see if the virus rates continue and can be attributed to water-containment ponds.
Jellison said if that turns out to be the case, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have to decide if it will require the ponds to have no shallow areas where mosquitoes can breed.
Man producers are already voluntarily treating their water reservoirs with larvicides to keep mosquitoes under control.
AP-WS-06-06-04 1457EDT |
