Pinedale, Wyo. – The Bureau of Land Management, caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency, routinely restricts its own biologists’ monitoring of wildlife damage due to surging energy drilling on federal land, according to BLM officials and documents.
The officials and documents say the BLM has compromised its ability to deal with the environmental consequences of the drilling boom by keeping many wildlife biologists doing new drilling permit paperwork and diverting agency money intended for wildlife conservation to energy programs.
In western Wyoming, the Pinedale region has become one of the most productive and profitable natural-gas fields on federal land in the Rockies.
With the backing of the Bush administration, many members of Congress and the energy industry, at least a sixfold expansion in drilling is likely here in the coming decade.
Studies of mule deer and sage grouse, however, show declines in their numbers since the gas boom began here about five years ago: a 46 percent decline for mule deer and a 51 percent decline for breeding male sage grouse.
Yet as these findings have come in, the wildlife biologists in the Pinedale office of the BLM have rarely gone into the field to monitor harm to wildlife.
“The BLM is pushing the biologists to be what I call ‘biostitutes,’ rather than allow them to be experts in the wildlife they are supposed to be managing,” said Steve Belinda, 37, who recently quit his job as a wildlife biologist in the BLM Pinedale office. “They are telling us that if it is not energy-related, you are not working on it.”
In Colorado last year, the BLM approved 604 permits to drill on BLM-owned lands. This year, BLM officials expect to approve 804 permits.
“Our wildlife biologists do a number of things,” said Colorado BLM spokeswoman Theresa Sauer. “They do spend a portion of their time supporting our oil and gas projects. And they also do things like habitat conservation work, fisheries and species recovery. They’re out in the field.”
Sauer estimated the wildlife biologist in the BLM office in Glenwood Springs spends about 30 percent of his time working on oil- and gas-related activities.
For years, the BLM has reallocated money Congress intended for wildlife conservation to spending on energy.
A national evaluation by the agency of its wildlife expenditures found three years ago that about one-third of designated wildlife money was spent “outside” of wildlife programs.
An internal BLM follow-up study last year found this widespread diversion of money has caused “numerous lost opportunities” to protect wildlife.
The findings were echoed last year in a report by the Government Accountability Office that said BLM was devoting more time processing drilling permits and less time mitigating the impacts of oil and gas extraction.
