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10 CapitalPress.com April 10, 2015 Oregon States adopt sage grouse protection plans New OSU ag admins By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press If greater sage grouse are listed as threatened or endan- gered later this year, it won’t be for lack of expensive conserva- tion efforts in the 11 Western states where the bird lives. Since 2010, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conser- vation Service alone has spent nearly $300 million and worked with private landown- ers to conserve sage grouse habitat on 4.4 million acres. A total of 1,129 ranches have signed on through the NRCS’s Sage Grouse Initiative. Other public agencies and private partners have spent an additional $128 million in that time, according to an NRCS report, and the 2014 Farm Bill contains $200 million more to continue the work into 2018. All across the West, landowners and management agencies are cutting intrusive conifer trees, marking fences to prevent in- fl ight collisions and doing other work to protect a bird whose po- tential Endangered Species Act listing has been described as the “spotted owl on steroids.” In fact, it was the bitter northern spotted owl legacy of lawsuits, timber sale pro- tests, mill closures and steep reduction in federal timber harvests that prodded private and public collaboration re- garding sage grouse. Tim Griffi ths, national co- ordinator of the NRCS Sage Grouse Initiative in Bozeman, Mont., said the intent is to achieve non-regulatory wildlife conservation while sustaining a working landscape. He said the public-private collaboration has been “nothing short of historic.” Whether it staves off an ESA listing, however, is an open ques- tion. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in 2010 that greater sage grouse warranted ESA protection, but held off im- plementation because other spe- cies needed more immediate at- tention. The service will decide by September 2015 whether to list sage grouse as threatened or endangered. Western partners must be able to tell USFWS what has changed since it made its ini- tial conclusion, Griffi ths said. A March report from the Sage Grouse Initiative documents the work that’s been done: http:// www.sagegrouseinitiative.com/ usda-report-demonstrates-pos- itive-impact-300-million-in- vestment-sage-grouse-conser- vation-working-lands-west/ Oregon, where voluntary conservation agreements on pri- vate and public land now cover nearly all critical sage grouse habitat in the state, is seen as a model of inter-agency and landowner cooperation. Ranch- ers represented by soil and wa- ter conservation districts have signed Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances, or CCAA, with the Fish and Wild- life Service. In return for taking basic steps to improve or pre- serve sage grouse habitat, land- owners get 30 years of protec- tion from additional regulation even if the bird is listed. Meanwhile, the Sage Grouse Initiative has spent $18.4 mil- lion helping Oregon landown- ers remove western junipers assess department By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press AP Photo/Rawlins Daily Times, Jerret Raffety, File This fi le photo shows a male sage grouse performing his “strut” near Rawlins, Wyo. States have been formulating plans to help recovery of the bird across its range. and other early-stage conifers, which crowd out sage and grass- es, suck up water and provide perches for predators. More than 405,000 acres in the West have been reclaimed by cutting juni- per, with nearly half in Oregon. The work has cleared conifers from an estimated 68 percent of the grouse nesting, brood-rear- ing and winter habitat on private land, according to the SGI. Griffi ths, the SGI coordina- tor, said voluntary acceptance by ranchers was crucial. “That would almost be the understatement of the century,” he said. “The ranching commu- nity not only opened up their gates and their kitchen tables for us to sit down and discuss this, they opened their pockets and brought their neighbors over,” he said. One of the early signers, rancher Tom Sharp of South- east Oregon’s Harney County, coined an expression for the agreements: “What’s good for the bird is good for the herd.” Harney County spent three years drawing up conservation agreements on private land, Sharp said. After they’d been approved, seven other Oregon counties adopted similar plans within three months. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown pre- sided over a celebration of the agreements last month in Bend. Marty Suter Goold, director of the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District, was in- vited to Denver in March to ex- plain the county’s work to offi - cials from the 11 Western states where greater sage grouse live. “Irregardless of what hap- pens with the listing decision, I feel landowners wanted to demonstrate their dedication to these kind of habitat improve- ments on private lands,” she said. “We’re pioneering a way of the future that can be mod- eled to any kind of species.” Goold said a timber own- er who’d been through the endangered species wars told her ranchers were far more or- ganized than the timber indus- try was when the spotted owl listing hit. AURORA, Ore. — One of the first tasks Oregon State Universi- ty’s two new agricultural college administrators set for themselves was a tour of research and exten- sion stations. Associate Dean Dan Edge and Sam Angima, assistant dean for outreach and engagement, wanted to hear from OSU staff and the producers who rely on the state- wide network of stations for advice and information. “You don’t want to come into a new offi ce and assume everything’s fi ne,” Angima said during a stop April 1 at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora. Edge and Angima visited OSU’s Mid-Columbia station in Hood River and the Food Inno- vation Center in Portland before stopping at North Willamette. The center, about 20 miles south of Portland, is a key contact point for berry farmers, nursery operators, hazelnut orchardists and Christmas tree growers, among others. Angima said OSU staff quickly made one thing very clear: “They are spread too thin,” he said. “There are huge demands across all our units,” Edge agreed. The statewides, as they’re called, haven’t regained full staff- ing from cuts imposed during the recession, but OSU offi cials be- lieve they’ve now got the Legis- lature’s attention and may receive budget help. Edge, noting OSU’s ag and forestry programs were ranked seventh best in the world, Eric Mortenson/Capital Press OSU College of Ag Assistant Dean Sam Angima, left, and Asso- ciate Dean Dan Edge are touring extension and research centers. said the university provides the best “pound for pound” return on the state’s investment. Edge was head of OSU’s De- partment of Fisheries and Wild- life Science before moving to the associate dean position Feb. 1. Angima was regional admin- istrator of OSU Extension on the North Coast, based in Newport. He moved to the Corvallis cam- pus job March 1. Angima said one of his goals is to break down barriers between the College of Ag and other departments. In some cas- es, researchers from other OSU departments do fi eld outreach that the Extension program can help with. “We can’t sit in an ivory tower and expect things to happen,” he said. A group meeting with An- gima and Edge offered some thoughts on their interaction with the North Willamette and other extension and research centers. One of them, Bill Sabol of Arbor Grove Nursery in St. Paul, said on-line advice and in- formation has its place, but per- sonal interaction with Extension experts is more valuable. With- out it, “You lose contact with your customers,” he said. Controversy over federal land transfer potentially moot By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press SALEM — The prospect of transferring federal land to state ownership roused sharply dif- fering opinions in the Oregon Capitol recently, but the contro- versy may be legally moot. Concerns over federal mis- management of forest and range lands in Oregon serve as the impetus for House Bill 3444, which would require the U.S. government to cede most of its public lands to the state. Oregon lawmakers are also considering House Bill 3240, which would form a task force on the subject, as well as House Joint Memorial 13, which would urge the U.S. President and Con- gress to make such a transfer. However, legal experts say that Oregon and other states Federal land by state Land area by percent of state 0-10% 11-30% Mont. 31-50% 51-80% > 80% N.H. Idaho Wyo. Nev. Calif. Utah Ariz. Colo. N.M. Alaska Hawaii likely face insurmountable challenges in trying to gain ownership of federal property. Such proposals generally refl ect dissatisfaction with fed- D.C. Source: Congressional Research Service Fla. Alan Kenaga/ Capital Press eral agencies but don’t have solid legal footing, said Rob- ert Keiter, a law professor and director of the University of Utah’s Wallace Stegner Center ROP-15-4-1/#8 15-1/#4N of Land, Resources and the En- vironment. “My guess is it has much more political salience given antipathy toward the federal government rather than any se- rious legal credibility,” he said. During an April 2 hearing on the legislation, Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, blasted the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Manage- ment for sequestering employ- ees in cubicles while forests grow overstocked and weeds overtake the landscape. “The bloated bureaucracies that control these lands seem incapable of change,” Whit- sett testifi ed before the House Committee on Rural Commu- nities, Land Use and Water. Supporters of the bills claimed that the U.S. govern- ment’s ownership of more than half of Oregon’s land mass effectively starves county gov- ernments of property tax rev- enues, leading to insuffi cient funds for law enforcement and other crucial services. Federal agencies are also hindered by environmental laws that prevent logging and other practices that generate revenues and mitigate fi re risks, proponents said. “Rather than focusing on the symptoms, we should be concentrating on the root of the problem,” said Tootie Smith, a Clackamas County commissioner. Environmental groups testi- fi ed against the legislation, ar- guing that federal management is necessary to protect species and water quality. Federal lands belong to the public and should be valued for wildlife habitat and recreation- al opportunities, not just “ex- tractive purposes” such as log- ging, mining and grazing, said Rhett Lawrence, conservation director for the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club. If federal land were trans- ferred to state ownership, the property would still be subject to the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, Lawrence said. The National Environmen- tal Policy Act would no longer apply to the lands, however, which would shut out the pub- lic from decisions on how it’s managed, he said. NEPA requires federal agen- cies to study the environmental consequences of their actions and is frequently the basis for lawsuits seeking to block graz- ing and logging. Representatives of Trout Unlimited and the Native Fish Society also spoke against the bills, arguing that the state would face a huge burden in maintaining the ecological work that’s currently done by federal scientists. The committee hearing fo- cused on the merits of the leg- islation, but the state’s authority to require the transfer of federal land likely poses a major obsta- cle for supporters. Lawmakers in Utah suc- cessfully passed similar legis- lation in 2012, but the state’s own legislative attorneys came to the conclusion that it has a “high probability of being de- clared unconstitutional.” Under legal precedent es- tablished by the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government has broad authority to retain ownership of public lands, said Keiter of the University of Utah. Land transfer proponents rely on language in state en- abling laws that refer to the disposal of federal lands, but these provisions are taken out of context since the U.S. government retains discretion whether to actually sell prop- erty, he said. 15-7/#5