Sagebrush is working with several renewable energy producers to capture the solar and wind energy abundant in the West. Projects range in location from the Mojave to Idaho. We’re mapping wetlands and waters, inventorying for sensitive flora and fauna, and preparing stormwater plans (SWPPP) for the arid, erosive project sites.

 In 2022, we began the process of helping Candela Renewables secure the Bureau of Land Mangement permits necessary to develop a nearly 25,000-acre solar farm in southern Nevada’s Mojave Desert. Fieldwork and reporting include a wetland delineation, natural resources report, and Biological Evaluation of threatened and endangered species, including desert tortoise.

Beginning in 2023, Sagebrush began a multi-year effort to map the federally threatened Mexican spotted owl across the Southwest. We’re monitoring spotted owls on the Lincoln, Coronado, Gila, Tonto, Kaibab, Santa Fe, Apache-Sitgreaves, Carson, and Prescott National Forests.  

Sagebrush is working with Tri-State Generation and Transmission, an electrical cooperative of several independent companies across the west, to ensure environmental compliance during repairs to their 35-mile 115kV transmission line. The Meeker to Rangely Line spans roughly 18 miles of Bureau of Land Management, White River Field-Office managed land. We are surveying for, and monitoring, rare plants, raptors, and other taxa. We’re also monitoring construction for Clean Water Act Nationwide Permit and stormwater-mitigation infrastructure. The project right of way passes through rare “cushion” plant communities endemic to the semi-arid region surrounding the Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming borders. It also runs adjacent to the White River, an important tributary of the Colorado River.

The transmission line is critical infrastructure delivering electricity to rural northwestern Colorado.

Sagebrush has been selected to conduct a variety of wildlife surveys throughout Region II of the U.S. Forest Service. Region II consists of 11 national forests in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Surveys are anticipated to continue through 2022. 

Between May and September, 2018, our biologists located 12 previously unknown special-status raptor nests. Species included Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, broad-winged hawk, and goshawk. Sagebrush, in cooperation with Forest Service biologists, developed a multi-species survey protocol involving broadcast vocalizations. Beyond raptors, we mapped fens, springs, northern leopard frog, and a host of Forest Service-sensitive species and habitats on over 37,000 acres.

In May of 2018, we were selected to conduct watershed-scale, special-status wildlife surveys on over 37,000 of the Black Hills National Forest. Our team was asked to design a methodology to simultaneously survey for four target raptor species: northern goshawk, Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, and broad-winged hawk. To achieve this, our GIS analysts stratified and delineated roughly 300 Primary Sampling Units, or PSU's. These PSU's are designed to predict raptor territories based on topography, vegetation, and hydrology.   

To date, our biologists have identified nesting territories of several Accipiters and broad-winged hawk. Our biologists have also mapped species of interest including mountain lion, smooth green snake, and northern leopard frog, as well as habitats of interest including springs, non-vascular micro-sites, and bat roosts.  

Beginning in the fall of 2018, Sagebrush began a four-year effort to formally monitor 35 Mexican spotted owl (MSO) protected-activity centers (PAC’s). PAC’s are approximately 600 acres centered around historical MSO activity, typically nesting. Formal monitoring is defined by USFWS survey protocol designed to detect and locate this federally protected owl. A total of eight surveys, four over two years, is required to confirm the presence or absence of MSO.

MSO surveys are conducted in the very early hours around dawn, and approximately 3 hours before and after dusk. At these time, MSO are most active. Detections are elicited by mimicking the owl’s vocalizations.

PAC’s on the Tonto National Forest can be extremely remote. Monitoring will occur in the Four Peaks and Sierra Ancha Wilderness Areas and along the Mogollon Rim.

Beginning July 2017 and continuing through 20201, Sagebrush will complete annual inventories of the federally endangered Sacramento prickly poppy (Argemone pleiacantha ssp. pinnatisecta) on the Lincoln National Forest, home to most of the roughly 900-1300 remaining in the world. This rare flower lives in the deep, desert canyons of the western escarpment of the Sacramento Mountains near Alamogordo, New Mexico. 

Sagebrush has been selected to continue yearly mapping of the flower to gauge reproduction, survivorship, and predation for the next three years.  

In July of 2017, the Tonto National Forest awarded Sagebrush a four-year Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. We have the opportunity to assist the Tonto with wildlife surveys for species such as Mexican spotted owl, write environmental compliance documents such as Biological Assessments, and take part in the Forest's NEPA compliance.  

During the winter of 2018, Sagebrush began a two-year protocol-level survey for Mexican spotted owl in the Four Peaks Wilderness Area of the Tonto.

In the often overlooked Elkhead Mountains of northwest Colorado, Sagebrush is helping its client to complete an Environmental Assessment and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wetland delineation. The 15,000-acre project requires a thorough permitting process to protect the wild, remote area while allowing thoughtful, unobtrusive development. Sagebrush is working with the involved counties, Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife to complete the project.  

During the spring and summer of 2017, Sagebrush's Avian Biologists conducted a 4,100-acre goshawk survey on the Pike National Forest, west of Colorado Springs. 

As a subcontractor to ATC Inc., Sagebrush completed 2,500 acres of baseline botanical inventory and rare plant surveys in support of the Boise BLM's Grandview Travel Management Plan (TMP). 

Our botanists identified dozens of rare plant populations, including Janish penstemon, Snake River milkvetch, white eatonella, and many others. 

Grand View, Idaho Botanical Checklist

In the Summer of 2017, Sagebrush will begin the environmental permitting process for a 40-mile pipeline in central Wyoming. Wetland delineations, a Biological Assessment/Biological Evaluation, and TES surveys are all required. 

In an effort to preserve the state's greater sage grouse population, Wyoming has created a compensatory mitigation framework allowing landholders to sell habitat mitigation credits to developers, energy producers, mining companies and others. Sagebrush is in the process of assessing a private ranch for its value and feasibility as a sage grouse habitat mitigation bank. Sage grouse require vast areas of undisturbed, un-fragmented sagebrush for survival. They're what's known as a "landscape-scale species". By establishing a series of habitat mitigation banks, Wyoming, which supports the world's largest population of sage grouse, hopes to preserve landscapes on the scale necessary for the bird. 

During the spring of 2017, Sagebrush's avian biologists conducted a 5,500-acre, protocol-level survey for nesting raptors in northern Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The survey's primary focus was nesting red-shouldered hawk and northern goshawk. To achieve this, biologists broadcast northern goshawk and red-shouldered hawk calls via loudspeaker. These broadcasts elicit responses, allowing us to GPS nests. 

Sagebrush located five of the elusive red-shouldered hawk (picture right) and one goshawk. 

Sagebrush was selected by the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest to conduct rare plant surveys on roughly 1900 acres and invasive weed mapping along 130 miles of Forest Service roads. The surveys include vascular and non-vascular species,  such as macrolichens, mosses, and bryophytes.

During the month-long baseline botanical inventory and rare plant survey, we located several previously unknown occurrences of duplicate tube lichen (Hypogymnia duplicata), few-flowered sedge (Carex pauciflora) and other rare plants known to the western Cascades. 

Beginning in the summer of 2015, Sagebrush's botanists undertook a six-year botanical study of southern New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. Scouring the ponderosa-draped Sacramento Mountains surrounding Ruidoso, and the drier, juniper-oak forested Capitan Mountains west of Roswell, we're mapping populations of rare plants including shootingstar geranium and Kerr's milkvetch.

In 2017, Sagebrush was selected to conduct annual inventories of the federally endangered Sacramento prickly poppy, one of the West's rarest plants.

Click here for the 2017 survey report   

On behalf of our Energy client, Sagebrush conducts rare plant and raptor surveys to help them maintain BLM compliance. We field large botanical crews for Uinta Basin hookless cactus (Sclerocactus spp.) surveys throughout BLM-Vernal Field Office, State of Utah, and Uinta Nation-administered lands. Smaller crews inventory raptor nests in proximity to proposed infrastructure, wells, and maintenance projects. 

In support of our Energy clients, Sagebrush conducts raptor-nest surveys, rare plant studies, wetland delineations, and develops stormwater as well as reclamation plans pursuant to their western Colorado BLM and state leaseholds. Presently, we're completing an Environmental Assessment for one of our clients. We work in the Piceance Basin and lesser known Colorado shale plays in Garfield, Moffat, and Routt Counties.  

Because our client is committed to stewardship of natural resources, we're helping them comply and exceeded Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), and other agencies' regulations and voluntary environmental minimization, mitigation, and avoidance recommendations. By designing Best Management Practices (BMP's) protecting rebounding bald eagle populations, mule deer, antelope, and aquatic resources, together, we're minimizing the producer's environmental footprint. We're also helping them plan ahead for reclamation, so in the future they'll leave no trace of their operation.