White-nose syndrome was first linked to a bat cave near Albany, New York, in 2006 and it has since spread to 16 states and four Canadian provinces, and the fungus that causes the disease has been found on asymptomatic bats in another three states. The little brown bat, as well as the northern long-eared bat and the eastern small-footed bat, are all potential candidates for federal endangered species listings, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing their bleak outlook.

Other species of North American bats are endangered as a result of human habitat disturbance. Bats, which eat enough insects to save the U.S. agricultural industry between $3 billion and $53 billion a year, are also flying up against industrial-scale wind turbines that crush their thumb-sized bodies.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will be directed to earmark the money from the 2012 endangered species recovery fund to research and manage the deadly outbreak of white-nose syndrome.

Bats swoop out of an old iron ore mine to feast on insects in southern Colorado.

“We’re grateful that there is an appropriation to fight white-nose syndrome and save bats, although much more than $4 million is needed to truly combat this unprecedented wildlife crisis,” said Mollie Matteson, conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Concern for North America’s bats is growing as the fungal disease that breeds in the nocturnal animals’ faces and wings continues to spread.

“The high number of bat deaths and range of species being affected far exceeds the rate and magnitude of any previously known natural or human-caused mortality event in bats, and possibly in any other mammals,” said Paul Cryan, a U.S. Geological Survey research scientist in Fort Collins and one of the authors of an analysis published in the journal Science last spring about bats’ economic contribution to the farming industry.

“It is obviously beneficial that insectivorous bats are patrolling the skies at night above our fields and forests. These bats deserve help,” Cryan said.

Scientists warn of more economic losses in the ag industry because of “the double-whammy effect” of bat deaths caused by white-nose syndrome and from wind turbines and other human encroachment.

“Because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be even more substantial in the extensive agricultural regions in the Midwest and the Great Plains, where wind-energy development is booming and the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome was recently detected,” said Thomas Kunz, a distinguished biology professor at Boston University who studies bat behavior and ecology.

There are 18 species of bats in Colorado and at least two other types found in nearby parts of Utah and Oklahoma that may be here too. White-nose syndrome is not known to have reached Colorado.

The National Park Service has closed caves in the Pocono Mountains in the eastern United States and, out west, federal and state agencies partially closed some caves and abandoned mines on public lands in New Mexico in response to the spread of white-nose syndrome. Others, such as Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Mammoth Cave National Park, are enacting processes to screen visitors to prevent the transmission of the fungus that can develop into white-nose syndrome.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is asking the public to report the sighting of any active or dead bats this winter. Last year, the agency, along with Orient Land Trust, established a 350-acre conservation easement including a defunct iron ore mine to protect 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats.

Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge is in the weeds.

The inspector general overseeing the U.S. Interior Department issued a report (below) late last month warning that the 4,880-acre former nuclear-trigger factory is overrun with invasive weeds that could destroy the unique biology that served as the reason for establishing the refuge in the first place.

The invasive species raise the specter of nuclear contaminants spreading to surface water, the report says. But there isn’t enough money to eradicate the weeds, and even if there was, the contaminated ground may prove too dangerous for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore, the report cautions.

The inspector general’s report is the latest bad news for Rocky Flats, where plutonium triggers, also called nuclear pits, were manufactured on the windy plateau between Boulder and Golden for 40 years. Like the nuclear bomb triggers Rocky Flats made, the controversies surrounding it were explosive. There were serious leaks of radioactive waste in the 1950s and 1960s along with fires that resulted in the most costly industrial incidents of their time. Water and soil contaminations surfaced in the 1970s. The 1980s were no better for the U.S. Department of Energy facility, culminating in a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid in 1989 that shut it down for multiple violations of U.S. anti-pollution laws.

Happier days were on the horizon for Rocky Flats in 2001 when the U.S. Congress passed the Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Act, preserving 6,400 acres for the plateau’s unique biology. Three years later, an environmental impact study documented more than 600 different plant species on the refuge, including the rare xeric tall prairie grasses that exist in fewer than 20 places on earth. The refuge is also home to bald eagles, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse and 1,300 animal species.

In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment deemed 4,880 acres at Rocky Flats clean enough for non-residential, restricted uses to be managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Department of Energy retained 1,500 acres where the land contains too many nuclear contaminants, which officials say must be “institutionally controlled.”

“The Refuge has sat idle since its establishment as the operation and maintenance of the Refuge remain unfunded,” the general inspector’s July 21 report reads. “The maintenance that does occur at the Refuge is mainly performed by FWS staff from the nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal unit. Because the Refuge is not staffed, noxious weeds continue to spread and destroy the Refuge’s unique, native species. …

“Plowing – a preferred method for extirpating an invasive weed infestation of this extent – would likely be restricted on the Refuge due to the concern that major soil disturbances could cause elevated levels of remaining radioactive materials to migrate into surface water. The invasive weeds could potentially destroy the unique biological diversity that is the very reason for establishing this Refuge.”

Finding funding for Rocky Flats should be a priority, according to the inspector general.

In its report and attached memorandum, the Office of the Inspector General urges U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Daniel Ashe to “weigh the unique ecosystem and pressing circumstances of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge against the needs of other refuges, and promptly determine whether funds should be allocated to remediate the problem while corrective action is still possible.”

It won’t be easy. The report noted that of the 84 projects the Fish and Wildlife Service’s local office prioritized, only seven of them were funded in fiscal year 2010. There are 888 local projects in all.

Initial estimates are that it would take five years and almost $600,000 to control weeds in just the worst areas, which consists of about 1,100 acres, or one-fourth, of the refuge. Delaying action will result in even more weed invasion that will cause costs to spike and more years needed to get the job done.

David Lucas, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s chief of refuge planning, disputed the inspector general’s characterization that management of Rocky Flats is “idle.” In a phone interview this week, he said the Fish and Wildlife Service is managing the refuge, along with the arsenal and two ponds in the area.

“Our position is that it is being managed,” he said.

Pressed for specifics, Lucas said management of the refuge primarily consists of providing security to enforce laws within its borders, the monitoring of wildlife and adhering to a comprehensive plan issued in 2005. Restoration goals are in the comprehensive plan, including one objective to reduce invasive weeds by 15 percent in five years. The inspector general’s report would suggest that goal was not met.

“I can’t say at this moment with any certainty” whether any of the plan’s objectives have been met, Lucas said. “We’re still trying to work our way through that management plan now that we have it.”

He further contends the situation may not be as dire as the inspector general’s report suggests.

Plutonium levels are below those the Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health outlined in letters from 2003 that clearly spell out restricted management activities at the refuge, Lucas said. He also cited drill seeding, herbicides and other alternatives to plowing that land managers can try to rid the wildlife refuge of invasive weeds and promote its native species.

“Invasive weeds are an issue across the West and in refuges across the nation,” he said.

Complicating the future of Rocky Flats is a stipulation that the Fish and Wildlife Service sell or trade a 300-foot-wide strip of property on the refuge’s eastern edge for transportation services. Two bids came in by the July 29 deadline and they are not without controversy themselves. One is to fold the land into the proposed Jefferson Parkway — a 10-mile toll road linking Colorado 128 with Colorado 93 to complete a beltway around the Denver metro area. The other bid is from Golden — a Jefferson Parkway opponent — that would build a bike path through the property. The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center is against both ideas, pointing to a sampling it has done that found breathable particles of plutonium on a site near Rocky Flats they believe blew over from the defunct plant.

“Plutonium remains dangerously radioactive for a quarter of a million years,” the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center website states. “Construction of either the highway or the bikeway along Indiana St. would almost certainly stir up clouds of plutonium-laden dust, making it available to be inhaled, endangering construction workers, nearby residents, commuters and others.”

Read the report:
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Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today released a report that assesses climate change risks and how these risks could impact water operations, hydropower, flood control and fish and wildlife in the western United States. The report to Congress, prepared by Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, represents the first consistent and coordinated assessment of risks to future water supplies across eight major Reclamation river basins, including the Colorado, Rio Grande and Missouri river basins.

“Water is the lifeblood of our communities, rural and urban economies, and our environment,” Salazar said in a press release. “… small changes in water supplies or the timing of precipitation can have a big impact on all of us. This report provides the foundation for understanding the long-term impacts of climate change on Western water supplies and will help us identify and implement appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies for sustainable water resource management.”

The report, which responds to requirements under the SECURE Water Act of 2009, shows several increased risks to western United States water resources during the 21st century. Specific projections include:

· a temperature increase of 5-7 degrees Fahrenheit;

· a precipitation increase over the northwestern and north-central portions of the western United States and a decrease over the southwestern and south-central areas;

· a decrease for almost all of the April 1st snowpack, a standard benchmark measurement used to project river basin runoff; and

· an 8 to 20 percent decrease in average annual stream flow in several river basins, including the Colorado, the Rio Grande, and the San Joaquin.

The report notes that projected changes in temperature and precipitation are likely to impact the timing and quantity of stream flows in all western basins, which could impact water available to farms and cities, hydropower generation, fish and wildlife, and other uses such as recreation.

“Impacts to water are on the leading edge of global climate change, and these changes pose a significant challenge and risk to adequate water supplies, which are critical for the health, economy, and ecology of the United States,” added Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor.

Reclamation is implementing actions to mitigate and adapt to changing climate, the release said. For example, at Hoover Dam, new wide head range turbines are being installed that will allow more efficient power generation over a wider range of lake levels than existing turbines.

To develop the report, Reclamation used original research and a literature synthesis of existing peer-reviewed studies. Projections of future temperature and precipitation are based on multiple climate models and various projections of future greenhouse gas emissions, technological advancements, and global population estimates. Reclamation will develop future reports to Congress under the authorities of the SECURE Water Act that will build upon the level of information currently available and the rapidly developing science to address how changes in supply and demands will impact water management.

The Bureau of Reclamation is the largest wholesaler of water in the country, providing water to more than 31 million people and to one out of five Western farmers for irrigation of more than 10 million acres of farmland. Reclamation is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the western United States with 58 power plants generating nearly a billion dollars in power revenues each year and producing enough electricity to serve 3.5 million homes.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today released a report requested by President Barack Obama showing that two-thirds of all offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and half of all onshore leases on federal lands are not currently being used by the energy companies that purchased the leases.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

“We continue to support safe and responsible domestic energy production, and as this report shows, millions of acres that have already been leased to industry for oil and gas production sit idle,” Salazar said in a release.

“These are resources that belong to the American people, and they expect those supplies to be developed in a timely and responsible manner and with a fair return to taxpayers. As we continue to offer new areas onshore and offshore for leasing, as we have done over the last two years, we will also be exploring ways to provide incentives to companies to bring production online quickly and safely.”

In Colorado and neighboring Utah, states with between 1 million and 5 million federal lease acres, only 32 percent and 22 percent of those acres, respectively, are currently being used for oil and gas production.

In Wyoming and New Mexico, both states with more than 5 million federal lease acres, only 33 percent and 69 percent of those acres, respectively, are being used for oil and gas production.

In his weekly newsletter on Sunday, Republican Colorado Congressman Cory Gardner blamed the White House for rising energy costs.

“As is the case with jobs and the economy, Washington is a big part of the problem when it comes to the cost of energy,” Gardner said. “Over the last two years, the Obama administration has consistently blocked American energy production that would lower costs and create jobs.

“It has imposed a de facto moratorium on drilling in this country, and it tried to pass a national cap-and-trade tax on energy. The result of the administration’s freeze on energy production at home is that gas is on its way to $4 a gallon and unemployment remains high.”

Many analysts blame rising gasoline prices on a recovering global economy creating more demand around the world and ongoing political upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East. Gardner goes on to tout the “American Energy Initiative – an ongoing effort to stop government policies that are driving up gas prices.”

Gardner and other House Republicans have been trying to gut the regulatory authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as block Salazar’s Wild Lands proposal for identifying and designating appropriate U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands for wilderness protection.

Overall, the Salazar report found that about 45 percent of all onshore leases and 57 percent of all leased acres are idle. Of the more than 38 million leased onshore acres, nearly 22 million acres are not being used. The Department of Interior is considering “policy options to provide companies with additional incentives for more rapid development of oil and gas resources.”

Denver-based Matt Garrington, deputy director of the Checks & Balances Project, said in a release that “it’s time to clear up the muddy waters around the drilling debate, and today’s report by the Obama administration does just that. The simple truth is approval rates for drilling permits are up, and industry lays idle hands on over 21 million acres of public lands.

“We should put an end to Big Oil’s speculation on our public lands and continue to move forward with responsible energy development.”

Salazar, the focus of repeated grilling Wednesday on whether he plans to run for Colorado governor given the withdrawal of Gov. Bill Ritter, sidestepped those questions and outlined an aggressive new leasing program meant to continue domestic oil and gas exploration and production but under stronger environmental and public health protections.

“The difference is that in the prior administration the oil and gas industry essentially were the kings of the world,” Salazar told reporters. “Whatever they wanted to happen essentially happened. The department was essentially a handmaiden of the industry.”

Salazar described new guidelines for U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) field offices when it comes to identifying and leasing appropriate parcels; new environmental review policies that take a closer look at other natural attributes of a proposed lease parcel; and a Department of the Interior Energy Reform Team to oversee the changes.

A ‘command-and-control system’

Critics were quick to jump on the plan.

“We are disappointed to see the DOI moving to a bureaucratic command-and-control system in which government bureaucrats — rather than scientists with expertise in natural gas and oil development — dictate where energy development should occur. The market-based system has worked well for decades,” Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS) government affairs director Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Salazar, who has grown increasingly pointed in his rebukes of the industry, said the notion that the DOI is trying to slow or shut down oil and gas production on public lands is patently false.

“I expect that the shrill nature of the criticisms from the oil and gas industry will come anyway, but there is a reality here and I think the facts speak for themselves. Those facts are that in 2009 the BLM held 35 onshore oil and gas leases, including four lease sales in December of ’09 alone. That’s 2,542 parcels covering 2.9 million acres.”

State Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, a frequent critic of the more environmentally stringent drilling regulations passed by the legislature last spring, issued a statement comparing Salazar’s announcement with the new state rules.

“Punitive restrictions on this important industry have already caused devastating job losses in my hometown,” Penry said. “Why on earth would Secretary Salazar want to take Colorado’s job-killing rules national?”

Good-for-business guidelines

Proponents of Salazar’s reforms say the recent slowdown is a function of the global recession and plummeting commodity prices. They also say better guidelines and closer government and public scrutiny will lead to fewer appeals of lease sales and less uncertainty for industry investors. In other words, they believe the new guidelines would be good for business.

Salazar cited records that demonstrated 40 percent of BLM leases were protested in 2008, during the Bush years, compared to 1 percent protested in 1998.

“A Department of Interior that was bringing about a slowdown or a moratorium on oil and gas development would have brought an end to much of that oil and gas leasing [in 2009] and we did not,” Salazar said. “Those from the industry who are crying out are simply crying because we are being thoughtful and are supporting development in the right way and in the right places.”

Indeed, representatives of Colorado’s oil and gas industry were much more measured than Penry in their response to Salazar’s reforms, acknowledging that they could be dealing with him as governor later this year.

“The natural gas industry will continue to work with the Department of Interior to ensure that energy resources are developed responsibly on federal lands,” said Tisha Conoly Schuller, president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA).

“Once we review the new guidelines, we will work with Secretary Salazar and the BLM to ensure that the process provides some regulatory certainty for industry; it’s important that lease protests are reduced and that the playing field is level for all energy development.”

COGA is currently suing the state over the new Colorado rules, which Republicans on the gubernatorial campaign trail– including Penry, until he dropped out and backed former GOP congressman Scott McInnis– have used as a rallying cry against the Ritter administration. But Conoly Schuller said COGA will work to promote natural gas production no matter who is in the governor’s mansion.

“The natural gas industry is working with this administration, and we will continue to work with the next administration, regardless of party,” she said. “Our focus is to ensure that natural gas is a key element of Colorado’s energy solution. We wish the Governor and his family well.”

The candy shop

Environmentalists and sportsmen were effusive in their praise for the reforms, which they say will allow them more input on the recreational value of a potential lease parcel before it’s fast-tracked for drilling using categorical exclusions granted during the Bush administration under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

“The steps outlined by Secretary Salazar should result in more effective conservation of important fish and wildlife habitat and sustaining our fishing and hunting opportunities,” Leah Elwell, conservation coordinator for the Federation of Fly Fishers, said in a release.

Salazar acknowledged the competing resources at play in federal oil and gas leasing. He said the Obama administration knows it can do much better when it comes to balancing wildlife habitat, energy development and public health.

“In the past our public lands were the essential candy store of the oil and gas industry, walk in and take whatever they wanted, and that’s not the way it ought to be done,” he said.

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Issued as amendments to six existing research and development leases on public lands (five in Colorado and one in Utah), the 11th-hour Bush regulations set the ground rules for moving forward with commercial oil shale production if and when oil and gas companies arrive at viable technologies capable of affordably squeezing kerogen from shale rock and sand in western Colorado, eastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming.

Some estimates place oil shale reserves in the region’s Green River Formation at up to 1 trillion barrels of oil that could then be refined into petroleum. Kerogen is the organic material trapped in the shale that can be extracted at extremely high temperatures.

But the process remains highly speculative, and environmentalists who have legally challenged the Bush rules say the current technology requires far too much water for arid western lands to support, too much electricity that would further exacerbate global warming and that the process degrades sensitive Rocky Mountain landscapes with adverse impacts on wildlife and tourism.

“We want to avoid the booms and busts of the past,” said Salazar, a former U.S. senator from Colorado, referring to a devastating oil shale bust on the Western Slope in the 1980s. “We want to ensure the potential development is done in a way that is environmentally appropriate, and we want to assure that the American taxpayers get a fair return for the potential development of America’s public lands.”

The Bush rules called for a royalty rate starting at 5 percent to be paid by oil and gas companies to the federal government for the use of public lands. Critics claim that rate is far too low.

“There is a question about how those royalty rates could actually be set when these very important fundamental questions [about technology, water and power] have not been answered,” Salazar said, adding the 11th-hour process was done without public scrutiny and was too favorable to a handful of companies currently holding leases.

“These lease addenda conveyed lucrative benefits to the leaseholders to the exclusion of others,” he said, reading from a letter he sent to the inspector general today. “Further, the addenda were executed at the very end of the last administration and were issued in contrast to the underlying leases without any opportunity for public review or comment.”

Royal Dutch Shell holds three of the Colorado R&D leases and is currently part of an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department of former Bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who later accepted a job with Shell. The DOJ is investigating whether Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, gave favorable treatment to Shell in exchange for a position with the company.

“There are serious questions about whether those lease addenda are legal or whether they should be rescinded,” Salazar said, although he said he’ll reserve judgment until the inspector general’s report is completed. At that point he said Interior will either defend the rules, modify them or rescind them.

Salazar also announced the Bureau of Land Management will begin accepting an unlimited number of applications for a new round of R&D leases of up to 640 acres, or approximately one square mile. Energy companies have up to 60 days to apply for those leases, which will be managed under a new set of guidelines.

Besides being smaller than the existing leases, which are for more than 5,000 acres each, companies issued a new lease would have to submit a plan of development within nine months, and once approved by the BLM, would then have to get all state and local permits for development within 16 months.

The development plans, Salazar said, will have to address key concerns about water and power consumption and environmental impacts on wildlife, air and water quality and local communities. Water, he stressed, especially in the Colorado River Basin, is a key concern.

“This is an obviously important question in Colorado and Utah, which are arid states with limited water supplies where commercial oil shale development would have major impacts on agriculture and other uses,” Salazar said.

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