RAPID CITY – Speaking here on national Endangered Species Day, a Kyle biology teacher said the oil industry’s thrust to remove federal protection from the American burying beetle promotes hazardous pipeline construction and habitat destruction on the Great Plains.
Dan Snethen, former Science Department chair at Little Wound High School, spoke at the invitation of the Prairie Hills Audubon Society, Rapid City Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, South Dakota Chapter of Citizen's Climate Lobby, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, Western Watersheds Project, and Dakota Rural Action.
The organizations advised listeners that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is taking comments until July 2 on its proposed beetle reclassification to “threatened,” a less protected status than its current “endangered” category.
“My concern is habitat pressure and fragmentation, which I believe the Keystone XL Pipeline will produce if they are allowed to build it,” Snethen told the Native Sun News Today.
The American burying beetle. Photo: Henry Gonzalez
The Canadian TC Energy Corp. is seeking federal, tribal and state approval to complete the pipeline through Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana. It plans to ship diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries and export facilities on the Gulf of Mexico.
Tribes of the Oceti Sakowin, together with indigenous and other organizations, including Dakota Rural Action, have tied up the permitting with legal red tape for a decade, arguing that it threatens treaty land and water with oil spills.
The Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission scheduled a public hearing on the proposed pipeline May 28 and 29, 2019. The tribe is among several that have sued U.S. President Donald Trump for illegally issuing a Presidential Permit.
The American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) is the largest of the carrion beetles in North America. A fiery black-and-orange bug known as one of “nature’s undertakers,” it efficiently cleans up bird and animal carcasses by burying them, nesting and feeding on the hosts, then raising young on them underground.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as endangered in 1989. The agency claimed it was in danger of extinction, because viable populations could no longer be found in 90 percent of its former range.
Once occurring throughout 35 states east of the Rocky Mountains, it is now only in six, including the parts of South Dakota and Nebraska where the Keystone XL Pipeline is slated.
Snethen is the one who discovered the beetle populations in many South Dakota and Nebraska counties, including Tripp and Todd, which overlap tribal jurisdiction and are on the pipeline construction route.
“I want them to remain there,” he said of the bugs, noting that they are an “apex scavenger,” which plows nutrients back into the soil, covering rotting varmints with secretions that prevent spread of disease-causing bacteria.
The environmental impact statement for the pipeline says the megaproject “is likely to adversely affect” the American burying beetle along a 60-mile stretch in Nebraska, as well as along a 35-mile length of the route through Tripp County in South Dakota.
Anti-Keystone XL Rally
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The installation would permanently affect 102 acres of beetle habitat in South Dakota and temporarily impact some 525. It would permanently impact some 170 acres in Nebraska and 285 acres temporarily, according to the environmental study.
The permanent impact would result from above-ground facilities, such as pump stations, and raised soil temperature in a 22-foot-wide corridor along the pipeline right of way. The temporary impact would result from construction and access roads.
However, the data is from 2010, so it’s outdated, Snethen said. South Dakota is only now embarking on a new study, in which he is participating. He explores and encounters beetle habitat, then traps, monitors and records beetles.
