Powder River Sportsmen’s Club objects to terms in BLM lease for Virtue Flat shooting range

Published 7:27 am Wednesday, April 3, 2024

A Baker City club that has operated a shooting range on public land east of town for more than half a century is objecting to changes in its lease that a member says could threaten the club’s future by restricting use of the range and discouraging people from continuing to pay member dues.

The Powder River Sportsmen’s Club has maintained the Virtue Flat range, about seven miles east of Baker City, for 55 years.

The club had a long-term lease with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the 52-acre site just north of Highway 86 and east of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

The restrictions in the new lease are intended primarily to protect sage grouse, the chicken-size bird that has been a candidate for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act for more than a decade.

The shooting range is surrounded by areas designated by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as sage grouse habitat, part of the Baker “Priority Area of Conservation.” There are also several sage grouse “leks” — areas where the birds gather each spring for the male birds’ elaborate displays designed to attract hens — in the area, although none is within the shooting range.

One restriction is designed to protect deer during harsh winter weather.

David Spaugh, the club’s secretary, contends that the restrictions would not benefit sage grouse or deer.

“These restrictions do not accomplish any conservation objectives,” Spaugh said.

He contends that traffic on Highway 86 disturbs sage grouse more than the shooting range does.

Nonetheless, Spaugh said on Wednesday, April 3 that he planned to sign the new lease on the club’s behalf to ensure that it had a valid lease and can continue to use the shooting range.

The club, which was founded in 1954 and has operated the Virtue Flat range since 1968, appealed the BLM’s proposed lease extension and requested a stay in late January of this year.

In the appeal and request for stay, which Spaugh compiled and signed, he noted that although sage grouse have lived in the area since the range was built, the BLM had not restricted use of the range based on concerns about how it could affect the birds.

The BLM opposed the club’s appeal and request for a stay, submitting a 16-page response on Feb. 9 signed by attorney-advisor Johnsie Wilkinson of the Office of the Regional Solicitor.

On March 5, Steven Lechner, a deputy chief administrative judge for the U.S. Interior Department, denied the club’s petition for a stay.

Lechner wrote: “The Club has not shown a likelihood of immediate and irreparable harm that would justify issuance of a stay. As a result, there is no need to consider the other stay criteria because the petition for stay must be denied. Accordingly, we deny the Club’s petition for stay.”

Without a lease, according to the BLM, the club’s use of the range would constitute “unauthorized use of public lands.”

The club’s appeal is still pending, said Larisa Bogardus, public affairs officer for the BLM’s Vale District.

The club can continue to operate the range under the lease Spaugh signed. Bogardus said it is a “contested lease” that will be in place while the club’s appeal is pending.

Bogardus said the agency had no other comment on the matter.

Lease history and proposed restrictions in use of range

The club’s previous lease for the shooting range was signed in 1992.

In 2011 the club sought to buy the property, but in 2012 BLM denied the club’s application because the land is within sage grouse habitat.

Instead, BLM extended the 1992 lease for five more years, through 2017. The agency extended the lease again in 2018, this time through the end of 2022.

According to the BLM’s response to the club’s petition for a stay, the agency notified the club, via email in 2012, that any new lease (not including renewals of the 1992 lease) would incorporate “any new sage grouse regulations or policy.” Those regulations were part of the BLM’s 2015 management plan for the area that includes the shooting range.

In December 2023 BLM offered the club a new 10-year lease, half the length of the 1992 lease. The new lease includes the three restrictions in the shooting range’s use that spurred the club’s petition for a stay.

Those are:

• The range can’t be used for two hours after sunrise and the two hours before sunset from March 1 through June 30 so long as there are sage grouse breeding areas within four miles of the range.

• The same hourly restrictions would apply if there are sounds from the shooting range that are 10 decibels or more above ambient sound levels.

• The third restriction reads: “Use and occupancy of the site is restricted during periods of severe winter weather conditions and periods of high deer use. High deer use is described as a density of 5-6 deer per square mile within a 2-3 mile vicinity of the site. The BLM shall define “severe” conditions based on snow depth (exceeding six inches) and temperature (one week of less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit). BLM shall notify the lessee prior to implementing a closure of the site. Closures may be implemented immediately due to the nature of winter storms.”

Spaugh, however, said that when he asked a BLM official about the deer restriction, he was told that it would apply year-round, not only during severe winter weather.

Sportsmen’s Club’s appeal

In the appeal, Spaugh disputes the notion that the shooting range harms sage grouse habitat and, therefore, that the proposed restrictions in the club’s lease would benefit the birds.

“No sighting of sage grouse within a mile” of the range “has been documented,” he wrote in the appeal.

He also questioned the validity of restricting use of the range, due to the noise of gunfire, only during the morning and evening.

“If gunfire is intolerable to sage grouse in the mornings and evenings, it will be intolerable to sage grouse during the day,” Spaugh wrote.

He also noted that the club supports efforts to protect sage grouse and intends to help by, for instance, controlling noxious weeds that can degrade sage grouse habitat. Spaugh also wrote that club members are willing to help survey the area for sage grouse.

He argued that sage grouse are unlikely to return to areas near the highway, and that efforts on behalf of sage grouse would be more fruitful if focused on areas farther east that sage grouse continue to use.

Spaugh also noted that the BLM has a seasonal public closure, March 1 to June 30, to protect a sage grouse lek within the Virtue Flat Off-Highway Vehicle Area, yet the area closure is much smaller, allowing vehicles within about a quarter mile of the lek, than the proposed 4-mile area around the shooting range.

In a 2017 report that documents threats to sage grouse in the area that includes the shooting range, the authors, including Brian Ratliff and Lee Foster from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Jacqueline Cupples from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, noted that recreational use, including but not limited to the shooting range, is “likely a localized factor” in reductions in sage grouse numbers.

The report also refers to the Virtue Flat Off-Highway Vehicle Area, the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and Highway 86.

The report, referring to all those recreational sites, including the shooting range, states: “Although these recreational sites have been present since before severe population declines, they should be assessed for their impacts to sage-grouse and the potential benefit of altering recreational uses.”

The report notes that although the BLM’s 2015 management plan requires that OHV usage be restricted within 2 miles of a lek during the breeding season, the agency’s voluntary restriction near the lek within the OHV area “does not meet this standard.”

The report specifically mentions the shooting range elsewhere, recommending that a new lease with the Powder River Sportsmen’s Club should include “seasonal and timing restrictions. … to reduce disturbance during breeding/nesting.”

Ratliff said on Wednesday, April 3 that ODFW has not specifically studied the potential effects on sage grouse from the shooting range alone.

However, he said the agency does support the three new restrictions included with the lease for the range.

Spaugh also included with the appeal a written statement from George Keister, retired district wildlife biologist at ODFW’s Baker City office who during his career helped write a report about sage grouse in Oregon.

Keister wrote that given the human activity at the Virtue Flat Off-Highway Vehicle Area and Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (which will reopen in late May after a four-year closure), along with traffic on Highway 86, he believes that restricting hours of use at the shooting range “will not result in a benefit to sage grouse or its habitat.”

Keister also wrote that the arrival of West Nile virus, which can kill sage grouse, around 2006 also could be contributing to declines in sage grouse populations in Baker County.

“Because West Nile virus has been documented near Virtue Flat, in the Keating area since 2006, and coinciding with a decline in sage grouse numbers in that area, its detrimental effect on sage grouse cannot be ruled out, in my opinion.”

Keister also pointed out that wildfires have harmed sage grouse over the past 20 years or so.

Separate group seeks BLM reforms

The situation with the shooting range prompted Spaugh and some other club members to start a website, fixblm.org, that he hopes will raise awareness about the agency in general.

He emphasized that the website, which includes a petition that people are urged to sign, is separate from the Powder River Sportsmen’s Club, and that its goals are national rather than dealing only with the shooting range lease issue.

The petition calls on Congress to require BLM to withdraw its 2023 Conservation and Landscape Rule, and asks the president to dismiss BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.

The petition does include one matter specific to the Virtue Flat shooting range. The petition asks Congress to pass a bill instructing BLM to convey 325 acres to the Powder River Sportsmen’s Club.