USFWS may list peppergrass as endangered

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has begun a process that could potentially lead to listing the slick spotted peppergrass as an endangered plant species, a move that could have an impact on military training operations in southwestern Idaho.

The action follows a settlement agreed to in the U.S. 9th District Court in Portland between the USFWS and two environmental groups, the Western Watersheds Project and the Committee for Idaho's High Desert, which had been requesting an immediate emergency listing for the plant, a form of mustard grass that grows in small plots scattered throughout southern Idaho.

One of the largest concentrations of the plant is on the new Juniper Butte Training Range site used by aircrews from Mountain Home AFB. It had been identified as a species of concern in the training range's Environmental Impact Statement. The EIS, the most comprehensive biological study of the area ever done, listed range fires as the greatest threat to the plant and other endangered species in the area.

The environmentalists maintain the plant is threatened by livestock grazing, road construction, military training and off-road vehicle use. One of the mission statements on the web page of the Committee for Idaho's High Desert lists its goals as being the removal of all grazing from public lands in the area and the elimination of all military training in southern Idaho.

The environmentalists had filed the lawsuit after Sen. Mike Crapo had intervened with USFWS on behalf of area ranchers to reject any listing of the plant, citing "the enormous impact such a listing might have on a variety of activities in Idaho."

The plant grows in small, isolated patches.

Billy Richey, the governor's military liason, said he was not certain how any future listing might impact the USAF training range, but noted that the Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the training range calls for cattle grazing as a fire suppression method by controlling the growth of "fuels" (plant matter) that contribute to fires in the area.

The RMP calls for an aggressive fire suppression program in the training range area. USAF training range crews are trained in wildfire suppression and the BLM is building a firefighting substation in the area.

"You don't want fires out there," Richey said, noting that the crested wheatgrass, a major fuel for fires, already is "up to your waist" in some areas. "Grazing is one of the ways we control that."

The RMP was approved by the BLM and a coalition of environmental groups that have been involved in monitoring the training range activities. Richey said the groups, most of them members of organizations that had opposed the training range plan in the past, have been working closely in cooperation with the Air Force to ensure the environmental health of the training range area as part of a formal mitigation group committee.

Richey noted the USFWS actions taken last week are the first step in a process that could last over a year and potentially could lead to a listing of the plant as an endangered species.

A series of hearings and public comment periods must be held and scientific evidence gathered, before the plant could be listed, and then a mitigation plan would be developed.

"My concern," Richey said, "is if they list the plant, do they have the capability to control it" and protect it. He said he was "quite confident" a listing should not impact the military mission at the training range, but might require additional control measures and modification of the RMP.

At the same time, he said, "if you're just trying to protect the plant, that's fine. But if you are using it as an inroad for other issues," such as trying to "back door" restrictions on grazing or military operations, "then that's something else."