Summary and Evaluation

Of Ecosystem Management

Within Thunder Basin National Grassland

Submitted by:

Leigh Croteau

Richard Grant

Joseph Johnson

Meghan Lout

Chris Orchard

This paper is a summary and analysis of the 2001 revision of the Land and Resource Management Plan for the Thunder Basin National Grassland produced by the United States Forest Service.  The plan summary is divided into six distinct sections: Historical Context, Geographic Area, Goals and Objectives, Management Actions, Plan Status, and Monitoring and Evaluation.  The second half of this paper is a critical evaluation of the management plan based upon key themes we believe to be necessary for effective ecosystem-based management.

HISTORCAL CONTEXT

Prior to European expansion, the Great Plains of the mid-western United States was a dynamic ecosystem occupied by herds of American bison (Bison bison), pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana), grizzly bears (Ursus arcteos), wolves (Canis spp.), foxes (Vulpes spp.), and a diverse array of additional plant and animal species.  As the United States began to expand into this undeveloped wilderness, some of these species as well as many others were extirpated through either active government elimination (as in the case of the American bison) or through loss of habitat due to human encroachment.  As a result, the system underwent significant alterations.

Pioneering farmers on the Plains adopted agricultural methods from the east, and did not adjust these methods to the arid environments they now encountered.  The soils were poor, and droughts were frequent, causing most farming attempts on the land to fail.  In many areas the land became barren, turning into what would commonly be referred to as the ‘dustbowl.’  In the 1930s, countless agricultural families were forced off the plains, owing their disappointment to failed attempts to sustain themselves as well as the economic effects of the Great Depression.  This land vacancy created an opportunity for the federal government to purchase ten million acres of the foreclosed land (Domek, 1999).  By 1960, over three million acres of grass had been planted and would become the National Grasslands of today.  Today the borders of Thunder Basin Nation Grassland (part of Medicine Bow-Routt National Grassland) contain 572,518 acres of this celebrated prairie (www.nwf.org).

Unfortunately, this land has been poorly managed since its acquisition by the federal government.  Almost all of the land has been intensively grazed, while oil and gas companies have completely transformed the natural habitat in several areas, including areas occupied by rare and protected species of plants and wildlife (Wyoming.sierraclub.org).  Due to these unsustainable management practices, the Medicine Bow-Rout National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan was created as a guideline in 1987 for all resource management activities (USDA, 2000).

The plan that is reviewed in this paper is the recent revision to that 1987 plan with provisions of the NFMA and other guiding documents.  This revision claims to focus primarily on the natural functions of the ecosystem, and not on the importance of livestock, mineral production, and hunting that were stated as goals under the 1987 plan (USDA, 2000).

GEOGRAPHIC AREA

Thunder Basin National Grassland is located in northeastern Wyoming within the Powder River Basin, between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills (www.gorp.com).  This National Grassland is subdivided into six geographical areas for the purpose of management: Broken Hills, Cellars Rosecrans, Fairview Clareton, Hilight Bill, Spring Creek and Upton Osage.  These six regions are organized by distribution of resources.

The topography of the region ranges from 3,600 feet to 5,200 feet in elevation.  Most of the land is generally flat with the exception of sporadically placed rocky outcrops, which are preferred nesting sites for rare ferruginous hawks.  Annual precipitation levels range from 10 to 20 inches, and climactic conditions yield cold winters and warm summers, with temperatures frequently exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mineral resources within the park are abundant, making Thunder Basin home to one of the largest coal-mines in the country – Black Thunder Mine.  This mine produces over thirty million tons of coal each year (www.ohwy.com).  Oil is abundant in five of the six geographical areas within Thunder Basin.

Thunder Basin and the surrounding plains create a mixed landscape of federal, state, and private lands.  This diverse range of ownership, and the substantial amount of natural resources found across the landscape creates a difficult task for land and resource managers.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The goals and objectives of this management plan are adopted from the USDA Forest Service Government Performance and Results Act Strategic Plan: Revised 2000. Collectively, these goals and objectives prescribe a grassland-wide direction for the types and amounts of goods and services the National Grasslands and the National Forests will provide, as well as a direction for maintaining ecological integrity. The Grassland management plan provides that regulations will be set to ensure that the standards laid down under the goals and objectives will be followed.

The statements made in the four broad goals of the plan are designed to bring about the desired future conditions declared by the plan. The objectives are concise statements that give time-specific instructions for the planned steps to be taken to accomplish desired goals.

Goal 1: Ensure Sustainable Ecosystems

Goal 1 is designed to promote the overall health and conservation of the nation’s grasslands, forests, watersheds, and the species therein. Specifically, the plan hopes to promote water quality, quantity, and associated benefits by protecting watershed conditions that support soil productivity and related ecological functions.

Specific objectives under this goal include moving 80% of riparian habitats to “self-perpetuating conditions,” to restore 20% of degraded stream environments, to support viable populations of native and desired non-native species, and to actively manage for indicator species (see ‘Critical Evaluation’).

In respects to the land itself, the plan hopes to increase the amount of grassland and forestland that meets the plan’s goals and objectives by reducing the impacts of fire, insects, disease and invasive species (See ‘Critical Evaluation’).

Goal 2: Multiple Benefits to People

Goal 2 aims to provide a multiple-use strategy for the grassland. It strives to produce these multiple-use benefits while staying within the sustainable capability of the ecosystem and conforming to the previous goal of ecosystem integrity.

These multiple benefits have been identified as: recreation, improvement of wilderness and heritage sites, livestock grazing, mining, enhancing and maintaining scenery, wildlife, fish, and plant use. Specific objectives outlined to meet these desire benefits include: the maintenance or reconstruction of 20% of Grassland trails, to develop recreational use plans within the next 10 years, to inventory and evaluate heritage and special interest sites within the next five years, to provide suitable forage for livestock, and to ensure existing claims to mineral and energy resources. In addition, the provisions of this goal require special permits for special uses within the grassland.

Goal 3: Scientific and Technical Assistance

Goal 3 states that a variety of scientific data must be collected in order to better meet the other goals of this plan. Through future research and monitoring of the ecosystem, and humans’ role in that ecosystem, the plan hopes to make future decision-making processes easier and more effective.

Goal 4: Effective Public Service

Goal 4 states that an appropriate infrastructure will be established to enable public use within Thunder Basin National Grassland. This goal also provides a basis for programs provided by the USDA Forest Service, including the improvements of roads, trails, and facilities. Additionally, it promotes public and organizational relations by allowing the public to participate in the implementation and future revisions of the management plan.

Finally, this goal dictates that partnerships will be formed with other agencies, universities, and institutions, including Native American tribes.

MANAGEMENT ACTIONS

The Thunder Basin plan presents management actions in the form of standards and guidelines. Standards are defined as regulations that must be followed, and guidelines are listed as advisable suggestions. Some standards are tied to laws and regulations set forth by state and federal governments. Such standards cover air-quality (e.g. Federal Clean Air Act, North and South Dakota Air Pollution Control Laws), water quality (decrease affects of runoff and sedimentation), soil conservation, restrictions on mineral and energy extractions, and compliance with federal wildlife laws.

Guidelines are advisable actions that should be followed in order to achieve the grassland-wise goals. Although guidelines do not have to be followed under the management plan, it is recommended that deviations from these guidelines be analyzed for future plan amendments.

PLAN STATUS

The current revision for the Thunder Basin management plan was adopted in 2001 and has not yet been implemented to its full extent. Although it should be expected that the revised would have had some new impacts on management within Thunder Basin in the few months that it has been adopted, officials with the Forest Service have neglected to comment to our team about our inquiries. Despite this lack of cooperation (which can be also be viewed as a failure to involve the public), one news report gives us insight to the situation.

This report from enn.com informs the public about recent (2001) actions taken to preserve black-footed ferret populations as dictated by management guidelines to protect endangered species. Specifically, the US Forest Service has curtailed (the specific meaning of curtailed was not expanded upon) the shooting of prairie dogs on 72,500 acres of land in an attempt to bolster ferret populations.

This commitment to preserving black-footed ferrets and their only prey species, prairie dogs, indicates that the plan is currently operating in compliance with stated guidelines and is perhaps on the right track to long-term preservation of these species.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Monitoring and evaluation techniques are designed to help maintain a long-term and effective management plan for the entire ecosystem within Thunder Basin. The NFMA requires that data be collected and analyzed in order to make appropriate amendments in the management plan. To evaluate species productivity, the national grassland staff hopes to conduct extensive research on the natural resources. Several means of assessing impacts on species within Thunder Basin are accomplishment reports, environmental reports, integrated management reviews, site-specific operations, and special data collection inventories. Alternative methods for obtaining necessary information will be derived from operational activities, or approved activities, which include fire-situation reports, escaped-fire situation analysis, fire evaluations, prescribes burns, and fire-management plans. The regularity with which these operational activities will be completed is determined by the information acquired during the execution of The Revised Land and Resource Management Plan. The monitoring and evaluation techniques of the plan will adhere to various implementation schedules and three- to five-year plans to maintain the plan’s responsiveness to changes in the system.

In addition, the plan is structured so that it may be completely revised on a cycle of 10 to 15 years. The current revision is the result of this revision process, and is the second such plan for the area. Such revisions are made when either achievement of one or all of the grassland-wide objectives is constrained by conflicting management plan direction, or if adequate progress toward achieving the grassland-wide objectives is not being made. Special circumstances may also warrant a revision.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Our evaluation of land and resource management for Thunder Basin National Grassland is based upon several dominant themes we believe to be critical to the success of an ecosystem-based management plan. In this section of our report, the extent to which the current plan addresses these themes is explored.

Hierarchical Context of Scale

Thunder Basin is a small division of the much larger Northern Great Plains ecosystem. The 2001 revision of the 1987 plan is part of a larger Environmental Impact Statement concerning three federally owned national grasslands, Thunder Basin, Dakota Prairie, and Nebraska. Even though this impact statement considers Thunder Basin as part of the larger Northern Great Plains ecosystem, the plan does not consider the relationships between these three grasslands, or the privately owned lands in between them. For these reasons, the Thunder Basin plan does not meet the highest standards of ecosystem-based management because it simply conforms to political boundaries and not ecological scale.

In addition, the plan discusses six broad geographical areas (See ‘Geographic Area’) that are based upon resource distribution, land development, and other human-centered factors. This failure to identify smaller scale ecological regions within Thunder Basin hinders plans for overall ecological recovery.

Integration of Terrestrial and Aquatic Aspects of the System

Under the goals and objectives of the Thunder Basin plan, terrestrial systems receive a disproportional amount of attention. This imbalance is driven by the plan’s focus on livestock grazing, mineral extraction, and oil-drilling (discussed in detail in the following section).

Despite the attention given to the health of riparian zones and the recognition of the importance of aquatic systems, the plan simply sets broad standards. Measures that are more likely to achieve the four goals of the management plan all listed as guidelines. By failing to make these more effective management practices enforceable policies, then the public and resource managers will not be required to abide by them.

The Thunder Basin plan also fails to give equal recognition to aquatic systems because it considers only chub fish as being important to aquatic systems.

Long-Term Sustainability

Long-term sustainability of current land-use patterns within Thunder Basin has not been quantified by the U.S. Forest Service in this Environmental Impact Statement. Livestock grazing, oil-drilling, and mineral extraction, significantly affect the system, but these negative impacts are ignored by the US Forest Service. Briefly, we describe some of these affects and why they are contradictory to listed goals and objectives.

Livestock Grazing

93% of the land within Thunder Basin that was identified as suitable for livestock grazing has been designated for grazing. Over the next 15 years, the size of these grazing patches will subsequently increase.

The primary concern with livestock grazing is that it displaces prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) towns. Although there is some information to suggest that prairie dogs can co-exist with cattle, ranchers view prairie dogs as competition and actively remove them from their land (www.enn.com). Prairie dogs currently occupy one percent of their historic range. This species can be considered a keystone species because their removal from the system has an irreversible effect on many species. In one study, 170 different species were identified to live within the boundaries of prairie dog towns, several of which would not survive without the prairie dogs.

The most high profile of these species is the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigrupes). These ferrets are only found on four sites in the wild (cite). Their survival is entirely dependent on the presence of prairie dog towns, and the continuing decrease of acreage allotted to prairie dog habitat is a direct threat to the survival of this federally endangered species.

Another species heavily dependent on prairie dogs as a food source is the ferruginous hawk (Buteo regalis). Prairie dogs, rodents, and insects, the principal prey species of ferruginous hawks, are believed to devalue agricultural lands. This has resulted in extensive baiting and poisoning practices that devastate wildlife populations at all trophic levels.

Mountain plovers (Charadrius montanus) are also associated with prairie dogs, although it is uncertain why. Since mountain plovers are a federally threatened species, management for Thunder Basin must attempt to restore species populations as much as possible. This means the creation of prairie dog habitat or conservation of preexisting habitat is critical to the survival of mountain plovers.

Burrowing owls (Speotyto cuniculana) are dependent on prairie dogs because they utilize prairie dog burrows for their nests. Burrowing owls are a federally endangered species and like the previous species, they must be a focus of management.

Swift Fox (Vulpes velox) are also federally endangered species that by law must be a focus of management. Although the swift fox is not as dependant upon the prairie dogs as other species are, they share the same habitat which has been largely allotted to livestock grazing and other human uses. These species are not cautious of humans, and the continued encroachment of humans into their habitat has resulted in the removal of this species from nearly all of their habitat.

The predominance of livestock grazing across nearly all of Thunder Basin is in direct conflict with the conservation of these species. Management guidelines and endangered species legislation dictate that the Forest Service must attempt to restore the species discussed to the fullest extent possible. Contrary to these facts, the 2001 revision lacks restoration plans for these species, and plans for livestock grazing are in direct conflict with conservation.

Mineral and Oil Extraction

Although exact acreage figures for land allocated to mineral and oil extraction are absent from the plan, the emphasis on these activities is second only to livestock grazing. These activities often occur on lands previously occupied by endangered species, such as prairie dogs (which, in turn, are associated with a suite of other endangered species). Aside from the fact that these activities displace such endangered species, there is also the potential for accidents and other negative environmental impacts that have not been enumerated. For example, the impact of thousands of miles of oil pipeline (potentially through endangered species habitat) has not been mentioned, nor have the adverse impacts of drilling and mining. Furthermore, the possibility of oil spills or other contaminations have not been assessed.

A Dynamic Perspective

The management plan does not include a dynamic perspective because it fails to establish an ecological historical context. Historically, fire has played a major role in the natural disturbance regime. Although the plan acknowledges the importance of fire, it does not identify the historical frequency and intensity of burning, nor does it attempt to restore such cycles. Seemingly in discord with the acknowledgement of the importance of fire, it is stated under goals and objectives that “damage from fire” will be reduced by suppressing wildfires. The plan does not go into any more detail on what it means by this, but it seems to be an enormous contradiction.

Under the current plan, the results of proposed controlled burning activities are expected to be observable within 10 years. Given the large size of Thunder Basin, the mosaic created as a result of prescribed burns would not likely recreate the historical disturbance pattern and thus fail to recreate the historical role of fire in the system. Furthermore, prescribed burning is limited in scope due to human uses (predominantly oil drilling, recreation, and livestock grazing) to several remote areas, limiting its impact.

Identification of the Systems Threshold for Human Impact

One of the management plan’s major failures is that is does not quantify the system’s threshold for impacts such as coal mining, oil drilling, and livestock grazing. Although the plan identifies 93% of the land as suitable for livestock grazing, it does not evaluate the effect of grazing on the land, water, and wildlife.

Despite establishing standards and guidelines for oil and mineral extraction, the plan never discusses the impact of such operations on the environment, and neglects to identify the acceptable extent. For example, the mineral extraction alters the landscape because ferruginous hawk habitat is destroyed due to the alteration of rocky outcrops and creation of industrialized areas.

Identification of Human Uses and Values

A good deal of the Thunder Basin plan revolves around important human uses of the land. These activities include, but are limited to, oil drilling, mineral extraction, livestock grazing, and recreational use.

Oil drilling and mineral extraction occur as a primary activity in five of the six geographic locations within Thunder Basin. Coal, uranium, oil, and gas development are important uses of the land.

Even though the plan identifies human uses and values, it does not discuss alternatives or elimination of many of these activities. The most important of theses alternatives is the establishment of wilderness areas within Thunder Basin. Approximately 11% of the land qualifies for establishment of wilderness areas (www.enn.com). The creation of such wilderness areas was thrown out in the early stages of plan development and the values associated with them were not considered.

An Active Management Approach

A great deal of the plan revolves around the collection of data and the establishment of plans over the next 10 years. Although the need for further study is necessary, too much emphasis is placed on waiting until these studies and plans are complete and too little is being done right now. Black-footed ferrets and swift foxes are two of the most endangered mammals in the United States and need a much more active management policy than is currently in place. Under the 2001 revision, no specific actions are being taken to preserve these or other species. The mention of management for indicator species under goals and objectives is the last mention of this idea. Nowhere else in the plan is it discussed in more depth.

Another instance of failure to actively manage for the integrity of the Great Plains as an ecosystem, not just a parcel of land ownership, is the failure to manage for prairie dogs on private lands. Prairie dogs are endlessly persecuted on private lands and are subject to large-scale elimination through shootings and poisonings. This condemnation of the species outside (and in many cases inside) the borders of Thunder Basin is simply accepted and no thought is put towards successful co-existence of the species on private land.

Interagency Cooperation

As is the case with nearly every other aspect of this management plan, interagency cooperation is recognized as being important, but there are no specifications. This gap between acknowledging and stipulating is a recurring theme throughout this plan.

FINAL THOUGHTS

After a thorough evaluation of this plan, our team has decided that the 2001 revision of the Land and Resource Management Plan for the Thunder Basin National Grassland has much merit, but lacks more than it has. Its succeeds in discussing the importance of nearly all the themes we believe to be important, but it severely lacks in actual substance. No concrete statements or plans are actually made, and in our opinion the plan will accomplish very little.

References

Domek, Tom. “Finally, a National Grassland Wilderness?” High Country News.

October 25, 1999. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hen.Article?article_id=5375

(March 27, 2002).

Environmental News Network. “No grassland wilderness for Wyoming.”

September 21 2001. wysiwyg://55http://www.enn.com/new…tories/2001/09/09212001/s_45037.asp.

(March 28, 2002)

GORP. “Destinations, Thunder Basin National Grasslands”

http://www.gorp.com/resource/us_national_forest/wy_thund.htm

(March 27, 2002)

Kessler, Jeff. “Thunder Basin Up For Grabs.” Winter 2002.

http://www.wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org/frontline/winter2000/thunderbasin.html