Prairie chicken group meets in Amarillo

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is having hearings this week to get public comment concerning a new plan to mitigate the harm for businesses from listing the lesser prairie-chicken as threatened.

The plan, developed by a nonprofit corporation founded in June 2013 called the American Habitat Center, is more than 500 pages long.

“The public scoping meetings are intended to provide the public with an understanding of the (National Environmental Policy Act) process and help us gather information for development of a draft Environmental Impact Statement,” said FWS spokeswoman Lesli Gray. “The project proponents will provide some background on their proposal.”

The Environmental Defense Fund helped create the proposed plan.

While FWS has access to the plan, it has not been widely circulated.

“We are very close to public release of the materials … We are coordinating with our partners now to determine how soon we can release” it, said EDF spokesman Donald Carr in an email.

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Source: Amarillo-Globe News