|
Bison kick up the dust for Nenana plans Doyon worries that a state plan to introduce wood bison in the Minto Flats will jeopardize gas exploration in the Nenana basin Alan Bailey Petroleum News
It’s been nearly 200 years since wood bison roamed the wilds of Alaska, but a plan by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to re-introduce this scarce animal into the state is raising the ire of Doyon Ltd., the Native regional corporation for Alaska’s Interior.
The problem is that the wood bison is listed as an endangered species in Canada — ADF&G plans to introduce the bison into the Minto Flats near Nenana in Alaska’s Interior, right in the path of Doyon’s planned gas exploration in the Nenana basin.
Disruption and uncertainty?
Doyon thinks that the endangered species issue will likely result in disruption to its exploration program and trigger unneeded risk and uncertainty around the program. The corporation wants the wood bison program stopped, or at least redirected into a less problematic location.
“People are just shooting themselves in the foot,” James Mery, Doyon senior vice president, lands and natural resources, told Petroleum News Jan. 21. “… It will mean delays, litigation and more cost.”
In November Doyon announced that Denver-based Babcock & Brown Energy was joining a partnership between Doyon, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Usibelli Energy to drill at least one gas exploration well in the Nenana basin in the summer of 2009.
Meantime Fish and Game has moved 53 wood bison from Canada to the Alaska Conservation Wildlife Center, to quarantine the animals in preparation for releasing them in the Minto Flats in 2010.
If the Nenana exploration well proves successful, the follow-up seismic survey will likely occur in the area of the Minto Flats at around the same time that the bison are released, Mery said.
“It puts all of this at risk,” he said.
Started in 1990s The idea of re-introducing wood bison to Alaska originated in the early 1990s and gained momentum in 2005 when Fish and Game formed a Wood Bison Restoration Advisory Group. Following some research and discussions with local communities in areas where the bison might be introduced, in April 2007 ADF&G published an environmental review report for a bison re-introduction plan.
“Based on public input and thorough biological evaluation, ADF&G believes that wood bison restoration in Alaska represents an outstanding wildlife conservation opportunity and that wood bison restoration will ultimately provide benefits for local and nonlocal hunters and wildlife viewing enthusiasts,” said David James, regional supervisor in the ADF&G Division of Wildlife Conservation, in a letter announcing publication of the environmental review report. “It is clear that wood bison are compatible with other wildlife species in the state and can play an important role in restoring and maintaining natural resources.”
James also said that the introduction of wood bison in Alaska would help with the recovery of the species in North America.
The ADF&G plan envisaged three potential sites in the Alaska Interior where the habitat would be suitable for the introduction of the bison: the Yukon flats, northeast of Fairbanks; the Minto Flats, northwest of the town of Nenana; and the lower Innoko River Valley, to the east of the Yukon Delta.
And according to a review of public comment and notice of decision that ADF&G published in December 2007, there was overwhelming support among local communities for the bison restoration plan, with 94 comments supporting the plan and only two opposing it. But Doyon expressed concern that the wood bison might become listed under the Endangered Species Act and thus impact resource development projects in the Interior.
Endangered species The endangered species concern emanates from the fact that by 1900 the worldwide population of wood bison had dwindled to just a few hundred animals in Canada, although conservation efforts since then have increased that population to several thousand.
The Canadians subsequently listed the wood bison as an endangered species.
Given the Canadian listing, in October 2004 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter to ADF&G to clarify the status of the wood bison under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, were the bison to be introduced in Alaska.
“We intend to treat any wood bison imported into Alaska as a foreign listed species and have no intention of revising the list so that they are listed domestically,” Fish and Wildlife said.
However, in a second letter to ADF&G, dated Nov. 28, 2008, Fish and Wildlife substantially changed its position, saying that “the wood bison is listed as endangered wherever found and, as such, would retain its endangered status if introduced to the United States.”
However, Fish and Wildlife proposed designating the bison introduced in Alaska as a “nonessential experimental population,” under section 10(j) of the ESA. That designation would enable the Alaska wood bison population to be managed less rigorously than would be the case under an endangered listing and would enable special rules to be developed for the Alaska herd.
Meantime, ADF&G was proceeding with its plan for re-introducing the bison and had decided to place the first group of animals in Minto Flats, where there was an abundance of state land and where access from the neighboring road system would be relatively straightforward.
But that put the department on a collision course with Doyon, which was now concerned about the specter of animals with an endangered species designation being planted in the direct path of its seismic crews.
Out of proportion However, Patrick Valkenburg, deputy commissioner of ADF&G, told Petroleum News Jan. 21 that the endangered species concerns had been “blown way out of proportion.”
The proposed designation under the ESA 10(j) rule is to alleviate exactly the concerns that Doyon has expressed, Valkenburg said. In addition to downlisting the bison to threatened rather than endangered, an ESA 4(d) rule that would be implemented at the same time would give the state rather than the federal government jurisdiction over issues such as the “take” of the animals.
“The key thing there for development is that there is no requirement to designate critical habitat within the 10(j) area,” Valkenburg said. And at a meeting on Jan. 16 Fish and Wildlife was “quite confident” that the 10(j) rule should alleviate any questions that might come up about the influence of the “threatened” status on potential development, he said.
“Once the species is designated as a 10(j) population, I don’t know that it’s something that’s subject to challenge,” Valkenburg said. “… Wolves were introduced into the western states under the 10(j) rule. … ADF&G has already made the agreement that there will be no introduction (of wood bison) if it is not under the 10(j) rule.”
And Valkenburg confirmed that there is strong local community support for the bison re-introduction project, in part because it might eventually be possible to hunt the animals.
But Doyon still worries that litigation could derail gas development in the Nenana basin.
An experimental population status “is no guarantee that litigation would not commence which would result in forced application of the full weight of the ESA in the Nenana basin, or that lengthy delays would not be part of any experimental population designation process because of associated studies and federal rulemaking requirements, which could also be challenged in the court,” Mery said.
| 