A federal circuit panel has ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) did not break any laws when it approved Jonah Energy LLC’s natural gas drilling project in Wyoming on land that includes sage grouse populations as well as migration paths for pronghorns.
“We conclude that BLM adequately collected and considered information on the sage-grouse and pronghorn, and selected a development plan that meets the statutory requirements,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit stated. The case is Western Watersheds Project v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, No. 22-8022. Conservation groups had appealed the ruling.
Jonah Energy’s approved project, the Normally Pressured Lance (NPL), includes developing 3,500 natural gas wells across 141,000 acres in the Upper Green River Valley. The project is expected to produce about 5.25 Tcf of natural gas over its lifetime.
“The challenged development project would further develop the Wyoming Upper Green River Valley,” the court’s ruling said. The 31-page court ruling noted that the project is on land for which Jonah Energy has development rights.
The approval “accords with decades of legal precedent,” Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma told NGI. She noted that the decision was “a basic ruling” based on the requirements established by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was enacted in 1970.
“NEPA does not dictate an outcome that there can be no impact on the environment,” Sgamma said. “It just requires analysis and disclosure of those impacts. Oil and natural gas development on federal lands is done in a way to protect the environment and minimize impacts."
Three groups had challenged BLM’s approval. Western Watersheds Projects, Center for Biological Diversity and Upper Green River Alliance argued that “BLM inadequately considered the impacts of the project on sage grouse populations and pronghorn antelope migration and grazing patterns.”
The conservation groups also raised several challenges. The district court, they argued, had “erred in analyzing the phasing design feature,” and BLM “should have collected more information about sage grouse habitat.” The groups also said BLM should have evaluated the effects of oil and gas development on the pronghorn herds. And they questioned the indirect effects from energy development on Grand Teton National Park.
In response to the groups’ claims, the circuit panel stated that the federal government does not consider sage grouse to be threatened under the Endangered Species Act, “but industrial development threatens its habitat and disrupts mating and migratory patterns.”
The court also pointed out that Jonah Energy’s development plan “has over 70 design features that cover a variety of issues, from sagebrush protection to refuse disposal, that all aim to protect the wellbeing of the public lands.”
The court stated, “The path of the pronghorn is the Teton herd’s last workable migratory path to the valley because of other development.” The U.S. Forest Service “protects a significant portion of the path from development, but these protections do not involve the proposed development site.”
Denver-based Jonah Energy is a privately held producer. The company works in the Jonah field, in Sublette County, WY, where it operates more than 2,400 producing wells that were producing an average 550 MMcf/d gross.
The NPL operation is “immediately south and west of the existing Jonah field,” the company said.
