Energy Development and Land Use
What Role Does CPW Have in Energy Development and Land Use in Colorado?
CPW regional energy liaisons and land use staff are a diverse group of wildlife professionals located throughout the state. This group works with energy companies and developers, and federal, state and local government agencies to manage the impacts of development on wildlife.
CPW is a referral agency in energy and land use, giving professional recommendations based on expert knowledge, and usually has no regulatory role in processes occurring outside CPW land. Working with stakeholders early in the planning process provides the best opportunity to conserve and enhance Colorado's wildlife resources.
How Does CPW Work to Protect Colorado’s Wildlife Resources?
The Energy and Land Use Group takes an applied science approach to conservation, using the best available science to evaluate the impacts of proposed projects and working to avoid, minimize and mitigate those impacts. As a group of energy, recreation and land use experts, it partners with other CPW sections (research, terrestrial, aquatics, wildlife management and parks) to identify current and future wildlife management priorities. With other partner groups (federal, state, local and non-governmental organizations), it strategically designs and advocates for wildlife and habitat protections in land development settings.
Areas of Impact
Wildlife requires habitat - a place with the food, water, shelter and space needed for each season. During consultations, CPW’s energy and land use team considers what local species need, how they use their habitats and what impacts a project might have on them. Three primary types of impacts are considered during this process.
Direct Impacts
Habitat loss can result from the footprint of development or the conversion of habitat to industrial facilities. Examples of direct impacts include the conversion of open space into housing developments, roads, oil and gas locations, solar facilities and oil-drilling sites.
Indirect Impacts
Sometimes the impacts of development are more subtle, leaving a habitat somewhat intact but lowering its quality. Habitat fragmentation, for example, makes it more difficult for wildlife to travel across their habitat and make full use of it, reducing its carrying capacity (how much wildlife a habitat can support). Indirect impacts also include behavioral changes that can lower survival or reproductive rates, such as wildlife avoiding an area due to increased human activity or added infrastructure.
Cumulative Impacts
In some cases, wildlife will be impacted by ongoing, compounding impacts from many kinds of disturbance and habitat loss. Examples of cumulative impacts include urban sprawl, increasing traffic on roadways and expanding trail systems
Avoid, Minimize, Mitigate
When looking at land use proposals, CPW evaluates impacts using a three-tiered strategy.
Three-tiered Strategy
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Avoid
Sometimes impacts can be avoided through proper planning and siting of development. Development can continue without any direct, indirect or cumulative impacts, leaving functioning ecosystems intact.
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Minimize
When impacts can’t be avoided, CPW recommends minimization techniques to lessen the extent and severity of those impacts. Those may include timing development activities to avoid important periods like breeding seasons and winter.
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Mitigate
While minimization efforts can reduce impacts to wildlife, they can’t make up for permanently lost habitat. Mitigation efforts compensate for the unavoidable adverse impacts of a development project. Habitat conservation, restoration and enhancement, or offsite stewardship can offset the impacts of human activity.
What Industries Are We Working With?
Recreational Trails
Trails impact wildlife in two basic ways: 1) direct conversion of habitat to trails, and 2) indirect disturbance to wildlife by people using trails. Removing vegetation reduces and fragments habitats, while human trail use can cause wildlife species to avoid the trail area. The best way to minimize these impacts is to avoid building in high-value habitats, such as riparian (streamside) zones, winter ranges, production areas (locations where wildlife breed and raise young) and in buffer areas around nesting sites.
For more detailed information, please read the Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind publication. This publication focuses on collaborative approaches to meet both conservation and recreation goals, and includes the current science and best practices for land managers, trail advocates and conservationists involved in trail planning.
Urban Development
CPW staff consult on the effects of proposed developments and on strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflicts once development has occurred.
Mines & Materials Extraction
Permits for coal mines, sand/gravel quarries and gold mines are issued by the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety (DRMS). CPW works with project managers at DRMS and mine operators to assess impacts on wildlife, review mining operations and reclamation plans, and make project-specific recommendations for avoiding, minimizing and mitigating impacts.
Oil & Gas
Senate Bill 181 was signed into law in April of 2019, resulting in increased focus by the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) regarding oil and gas development applications to protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife resources. The bill also enabled local governments to have increased oversight and input in oil and gas activities. CPW works closely with oil and gas developers, local governments and ECMC through a formal consultation.
Renewable Energy
CPW also consults with project developers and county planners working on wind energy projects, solar facilities, transmission lines, geothermal energy and battery storage projects on project location, design and operations to identify potential impacts on wildlife and recommendations to avoid, minimize and mitigate those impacts.
Most renewable energy projects are permitted through the county’s 1041 process, based on Areas and Activities of State Interest Act policies giving local governments power to regulate certain land use activities.
Fencing With Wildlife in Mind
For wildlife to move about daily and seasonal habitats, the fewer fences the better. If fencing is necessary, then it should allow for relatively free movement of wildlife. For detailed fencing information, please read CPW’s Fencing with Wildlife in Mind publication.
Transportation & Wildlife Corridors
Wildlife corridors and crossings (overpasses and underspasses) allow animals to safely cross roads and reach key parts of their seasonal habitats. CPW partners with private landowners, Land Trusts, land managers, local governments, Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), and the Colorado Wildlife Transportation Alliance to provide wildlife-specific expertise on proposed wildlife corridors and crossings.
Habitat Improvement & Reclamation
CPW’s energy liaisons and land use specialists also work on habitat improvement projects, which restore and/or improve wildlife habitats. This team facilitates conservation easements, manages oil and gas compensatory mitigation funds, and identifies habitat reclamation or improvement projects throughout the state.
Energy and Land Use Resources
- Energy Liaison and Land Use Coordinator Contacts
- CPW's recommendations to avoid and minimize impacts to wildlife from land use development in Colorado (High Priority Habitats)
- CPW Species Activity Maps and High Priority Habitats GIS & KMZ Data
- Recommended Buffer Zones and Seasonal Restrictions For Colorado Raptors (2020)
- Recommended Survey Protocol Actions to Protect Nesting Burrowing Owls
- Big Game Winter Range & Migration Corridors: 2020 Status Report
- Solar Energy Best Management Practices
- Wind Energy Best Management Practices
- Fencing with Wildlife in Mind
- Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind
- Colorado Seed Tool