The Green Sportsman

The sportsmen’s counter-offensive against the Bush Administration’s assault on public lands in the Rocky Mountains continued to gather momentum last week when Trout Unlimited and the National Wildlife Federation used a Washington press event to release its “Sportsmen’s Public Lands Energy Agenda.” (www.tu.org)

This concise, eight-page report provides hunters and anglers with a sensible, measured, fact-filled response to administration claims it needs to run rough shod over fish and wildlife habitat because the nation’s needs the oil and gas – and anyone opposing its actions is obstructionist.

Neither claim is true. There is plenty of energy available on lands already open to exploration – and sportsmen have never been against all development. We just want this administration to follow the laws that have worked well for two decades – even if it costs their oil friends a little extra money to increase their already considerable wealth

The new report lays it all out, starting with the first sub-head “Look Before You Lease” which points out that “88 percent of the ‘technically recoverable’ natural gas on federal lands in the Rocky Mountain West is currently available for leasing and development. Despite this huge acreage available for leasing and development, federal agencies continue to lease new areas. Federal agencies are leasing areas that are in the midst of land management plan revisions undercutting legal requirements for both public involvement and the use of best available scientific information to inform management decisions.”

Then, as it does for all the points on the next eight pages, it offers a “Solution.”

“Congress should prohibit new oil and gas leasing on public lands until landscape level management plans are completed. Landscape level management plans should include analyses of the habitat requirements and limitations for game species and other species of concern.”

That might sound extreme to someone waiting to become rich off public property. But to the overwhelming majority of the folks who own that land – especially hunters and anglers – it seems pretty reasonable.

The fact this argument is coming from sportsmen increases the likelihood that Congress may finally start listening, and bring the Bush administration back to responsible stewardship.

If the Democratic Congress wants to establish itself as a green alternative to six ugly years of Bushcology, there’s no better – or easier – place to start than ending mountaintop removal mining.

The term “mountaintop removal mining: is a perfect description of the process, but a more gripping explanation comes from Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia: "Mountaintop removal entails the blasting of entire summits to rubble in an effort to reach, as quickly as possible, thin seams of bituminous coal. Trees, topsoil and sandstone are dumped into the valleys below.”

According to state and federal studies, the dumping has buried more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams, and polluted 95 percent of the headwater streams near the operations.

Anglers and other green groups have labored for decades to end the practice, but the coal lobby was too powerful in both Democratic and Republican administrations. That power grew even greater when George W. Bush took office. In 2002, with environmentalists pressing legal questions, the administration reclassified the tons of rock and debris being tossed down the mountains from “waste” to “fill” basically exempting mountaintop removal mining from important sections of the Clean Water Act.

The destruction continued unabated until March, when a federal judge ruled in favor of environmental groups that claimed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not done an adequate environmental impact statement on four mining operations. Seems the corps had decided that mountaintop removal mining would have “no significant impact" on the local environment, and further claimed the mining companies could return everything to original health after cleanup.

Judge Robert Chambers - like everyone else not connected to coal companies - disagreed, ruling “The Corps believes that once the ditches are connected and channels reshaped, they will transform into streams and supply the same structure and functions as the destroyed streams. However, the Corps offers little experience or scientific support for this belief. The Corp's witnesses . . . conceded that the Corps does not know of any successful stream creation projects in the Appalachian region."

The coal companies have said they would appeal the ruling. Given the way the Bush Administration has been stocking the courts with anti-regulatory zealots, their chances are good.

But there’s still hope. The Clear Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169, introduced earlier this month, would end the practice. At last count it had 67 co-sponsors.

Green sportsmen should urge their reps to join the list – it’s good for trout, sportsmen and the earth.

Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?

I couldn’t help think of that old sarcasm when I read the reaction by federal agencies and the energy industry to a report last week on the impact of the Bush Administrations drill-fast-ask-questions-later policy in the Rocky Mountains.

The title of the report by the Environmental Working Group best sums up the growing anger among sportsmen toward Dubya’s regard for public lands: “Who Owns the West? How Reckless Oil & Gas Drilling on Public Lands Threatens Wildlife Habitat – and Hunting.”

Its main point is that drilling in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming has doubled since Bush-Cheney took office, going from 1,036 new wells per year during the Clinton Administration (1993-2000) to 2,053 per year under the Bushies.

That rush to drill was enabled by removing many long-standing regulations that reduced the impacts of private profit seeking on public fish and wildlife habitat. Those rules were in place because it seemed only reasonable that if most of the owners of this land use it for recreation, then those who want it to enrich themselves should have to follow rules.

Using state fish and game agency maps, the EWG report shows the feds have leased 23 million acres of mule deer habitat, 18 million acres of antelope habitat, 17 million acres of sage grouse habitat and 13 million acres of elk habitat. It cites reports from both wildlife agencies and hunters that the drilling has disrupted access as well as results to public hunting lands.

No one should be surprised by those figures. The issue has been raised for six years by groups like The Wilderness Society; Trout Unlimited; the National Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, to name a few.

But Bushies and their oil pals insist sportsmen and other greenies have it all wrong. A BLM official told the Associate Press that the increase in drilling had nothing to do with Bush energy policies but was a reflection of market forces. An oil industry rep piped in with the same line, then dismissed the concern of hunters and other green folks with "It's very narrow-minded to believe oil and gas development is not going to occur."

That kind of arrogance has ruled the debate for six years, allowing incalculable damage to take place on our lands. The EWG highlights the impacts to real sportsmen using maps of specific prized public hunting areas to show the increase in leasing.

It’s the kind of information every sportsman should memorize--and have read during the coming election cycle. When the next candidate heavily subsidized by the energy industry tells you everything is fine out west--tell him you prefer to believe your lying eyes.