Why is BLM Force Removing NV's Wild Horses?

This article is a few months old, though remains relevant to the debates about risks posed by the proposed Ruby Pipeline. Wild horses, sagegrouse and other species of the sage highlads are threatened by this natural gas pipeline. The recent explosion of a natural gas pipeline near Dallas, TX should remind us of our wisdom in rushing to dig another pipeline through pristine habitat. A few short term jobs do NOT justify the long term destruction of the sage ecosystems!!


"The Real Reason Behind BLM’s Push to Remove Wild Horses: Is Ruby Pipeline the Smoking Gun? Wild horse advocates question pipeline's involvement in massive removals of wild horses on public land."



"Denver, CO (January 7, 2010)—The Cloud Foundation asks the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reveal the truth behind removing healthy wild horses from the Calico Complex of northwestern Nevada. It does not appear to be coincidental that the multi-billion dollar corporate project, the Ruby Pipeline, would run through the Calico Complex—site of the controversial roundup of more than 2,500 mustangs and the Buckhorn Wild Horse Herd Management Area. BLM removed over 200 wild horses at Buckhorn in December 2009 without public notice.

Director of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has told members of the public that the horses will starve if not removed because there is nothing for them to eat. The Director of the BLM, Bob Abbey, also supported Salazar’s claim when he stated this week that horses are being removed “to restore an ecological balance” even though this claim is nullified by numerous experts including a biodiversity science specialist with 8 years experience in the range and the sworn testimony of BLM employees Eckel and Drake. Abbey went on to reassert the BLM policy position that “we will need to continue removing excess wild horses from the public rangelands in areas where the land can no longer support them.”

Yet, documents recently received by The Cloud Foundation from biologist Katie Fite of Western Watersheds and researcher Cindy MacDonald (publisher of the American Herds blog) today expose what may be the real reasons behind the massive, dead of winter wild horse roundups—and they have nothing to do with horse or rangeland health—but may have everything to do with the Ruby Pipeline.

In a written response to questions posed by the Office of Energy Projects (an agency within the Department of Energy), a Ruby natural gas pipeline project consultant, Dan Gredvig, stated that “Ruby will work with BLM to minimize wild horse and burro grazing along the restored ROW (right-of-way) for three years. Possible management actions would be to . . . reduce wild horse populations following BLM policy in appropriate management areas. BLM wild horse and burro specialists were consulted in developing this management approach.” The document is dated February 23, 2009.

It appears that the public’s wild horses are being removed at taxpayer expense on publicly owned land to make way for a multi-billion dollar pipeline constructed by El Paso Natural Gas Corporation of Colorado Springs, CO. Natural gas and water would ultimately provide added resources to California and other destinations. Given these new revelations, the public has the right to ask several key questions and get immediate answers to them: 1) Who really stands to profit from removing wild horses from public lands? 2) What private contractors, possible politicians, and/or agency bureaucrats stand to benefit from the yet undisclosed details of the Ruby Project? 3) Why has the public been excluded from any discussion of this undisclosed use of taxpayer public lands?


“I don’t think it is out of line to seek immediate responses to these questions. The public has a right to know what is happening to their public lands and to the future of their wild horses, especially when it comes at taxpayer expense..” Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director, The Cloud Foundation (named for the famous wild horse Kathrens has documented for the PBS/Nature series).

According to a Western Watersheds report this is the largest project of its type across significant public lands in the American West in recent memory. Ruby has seized upon a sliver of ecologically critical unprotected public wild land to punch a new corridor through, and bisect this irreplaceable landscape, including many of the last viable herds of wild horses in the West.

“The roundups in the Ruby Pipeline zone are questionable,” states Katie Fite, biologist and biodiversity specialist. “The public is not being told the truth. There needs to be an investigation within all levels of BLM considering the unavoidable damage to our public lands. There is no mitigation provided for to restore this biologically wild, remote, and untrammeled landscape in northwestern Nevada and southeastern Oregon.”

Wild horse advocates and concerned Colorado citizens will be gathering to protest in downtown Denver on Thursday January 7 from 12:00-2:00pm in front of Senator Mark Udall’s office building (999 Eighteenth Street, North Tower). Kathrens will address the crowd and press at noon. The group will be asking the Senator to help halt the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) massive roundup of wild horses currently living in the half million acre Calico Mountain Complex area in NW Nevada.

article found here;
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/index.php/news-events-a-media/press-releases/258-ruby1

other details on Ruby Pipeline's ecological impacts;
http://nevada.sierraclub.org/RubyPipeline.html

Toiyabe Sierra Club asks FERC for a rehearing, gives reasons why they support the "no action" option, as in build no pipeline!!

"Instead, the Ruby Pipeline proposed route crosses critical habitat in many places in Nevada and especially in the northeast and northwest portions. Further, the pipeline goes cross-country and does not follow existing roads or established utility corridors. It would create a new corridor in currently wild and open lands throughout Nevada where most access is via jeep trails or, at best, dirt roads.

Ruby Pipeline, LLC, could not have picked an environmentally worse route across Nevada than the proposed route.

The Sierra Club submitted its comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) draft Environmental Impact Statement August 7, 2009. The Chapter strongly supported the no action alternative and opposed the proposed route because it would permanently destroy pristine sagebrush ecosystems. Comments on the disappointing final EIS were submitted on February 15, 2010.

The proposed pipeline route would cross critical wildlife and wild lands on the southern boundary of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Nevada, cut through a portion of the Black Rock High Rock Emigrant Trail National Conservation Area and border the Summit Lake Paiute Reservation in northwestern Nevada. Comments on the inadequate mitigation plan and voluntary conservation agreements not made public until mid-December were filed with FERC on February 3, 2010."

People can still contact the BLM and ask them to delay the Ruby Pipeline project for at least one year until further studies can show an actual need for increased natural gas demand and also effective mitigation measures for all the miles of habitat the pipeline construction will destroy in the excavation process.

Wouldn't most people prefer the labor resources used for more appropriate projects like local biomethane anaerobic digesters for each community, county and town that requests it. This is the true path to sustainability and energy independence, otherwise the pipeline owners will decide how much to charge for their natural gas depending on what they can get for it. Natural gas remains financially unreliable and physically unstable. Biomethane would result in more permanant jobs than the short term jobs of the Ruby Pipeline.

alternative energy resources;
http://www.biomethane.com/