A Project Habitat^® Initiative in Eastern New York State, February 1997

Ongoing Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) research evaluates right-of-way (ROW) selective vegetation management techniques to expand habitat for the host blue lupine plant of the endangered Karner blue butterfly (KBB), while retaining traditional ROW operations and maintenance techniques near Albany, New York. Routine broadcast herbicide applications in the 1960s and 1970s favored lupine by emulating a pioneer succession zone normally created by fire. Outside ROWs, this habitat continues to be lost to urbanization. A habitat preserve was formed in 1988, but only within the last five years have individual and group enhancement efforts become organized. In 1995, NMPC helped foster a coalition of these groups under the umbrella of Project Habitat^®. This initiative favorably influenced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue NMPC a research permit in lieu of an Endangered Species Act (ESA) `incidental take’ permit. Today’s selective ROW vegetation management techniques favor shrub communities; we suspect this may be counterproductive, leading to the exclusion of nectar species. Hence, the research permit becomes a vehicle to enhance habitat, to preserve operations and maintenance options, and to reduce risk of ESA penalization.

Keywords: Project Habitat^®, blue lupine, Karner blue butterfly, herbicides, Integrated Vegetation Management, plant succession, Endangered Species Act

Reprinted from Williams, James R., John W. Goodrich-Mahoney, Jan R. Wisniewski and Joe Wisniewski (Editors) / The Sixth International Symposium on Environmental Concerns in Rights-of-Way Management, Copyright 1997, with permission from Elsevier Science.