Garfield County says BLM emails help make the case on sage-grouse

A series of internal emails between U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials and wildlife experts in late 2011 suggest some reservations about a National Technical Team (NTT) report that was used as a basis for coming up with a plan to protect the greater sage-grouse. In particular, some comments by BLM officials during the early stages of a federal study to determine the bird’s habitat in northwest Colorado and other Western states seem to question the science behind the NTT’s recommended protective measures, said Fred Jarman, the lead staffer for Garfield County in its role as a cooperating agency with the BLM on the Northwest Colorado Greater Sage-Grouse draft Environmental Impact Statement. The messages, dating from late September 2011 through December of that year, were obtained on behalf of Garfield County by independent wildlife biology consultant Rob Ramey through an official Freedom of Information request, Jarman said. They were included along with Garfield County’s formal comments to the BLM on the draft EIS and were submitted by the Monday deadline. In one message, Jim Perry, senior natural resources specialist for the BLM in Washington, D.C., questions the scientific basis for a suggested 3 percent cap on surface disturbance within identified priority sage-grouse habitat management zones. “It appears the BLM is being unnecessarily set up for immediate failure across the priority habitats,” Perry writes in the Dec. 22, 2011, message to fellow BLM officials, including Dwight Fielder, the now-retired chief of the BLM’s Division of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in Washington, and Raul Morales, the BLM’s deputy Nevada state director for natural resources, lands and planning. “Nearly all [zones] contain roads, pipelines, power lines, homes, farms, well pads, etc. …,” Perry notes. “Science says 30-50 percent [cap] in non-sagebrush cover is OK, but the NTT report says 3 percent. “Am I missing something … or is this a misappropriation of professional judgment and science?,” he inquires...more