Sage-Grouse Habitat Siting Screener — BLM/USFS PHMA/GHMA API

Point-in-polygon screening of coordinates against seven federal Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) Habitat Management Area sources — BLM and USFS Records of Decision covering Wyoming, Utah, Nevada/California, Colorado, Idaho/SW Montana, and Oregon. Built for western wind, solar, oil & gas, transmission, and BESS developers who need to know, before they spend money on a NEPA package, whether a proposed site sits inside sage-grouse Priority or General Habitat.

Greater Sage-Grouse habitat stipulations are one of the biggest schedule and scope risks in western federal-land energy siting: Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA) commonly carry seasonal timing limitations, surface-disturbance density caps, noise thresholds near leks, and net-conservation-gain / mitigation requirements under the governing BLM/USFS Resource Management Plan. Finding this out during due diligence — not during permitting — is the whole point of this actor.

Who this is for

• Wind, solar, and BESS developers siting projects on BLM/USFS land in the 11-state sage-grouse range.
• Oil & gas and mining operators evaluating lease parcels or well pads for seasonal-timing and disturbance-cap exposure.
• Transmission and pipeline right-of-way applicants routing corridors through federal sage-grouse country.
• NEPA / environmental consultants doing early constraints screening before a formal Biological Assessment.
• AI agents / MCP tool chains doing automated site-due-diligence rollups alongside critical-habitat, wetlands, and grid-proximity checks.

Why this actor (and not a raw GIS layer)

There is no single national BLM sage-grouse layer — coverage is a federated set of per-sub-region Records of Decision, each with its own ArcGIS service and, maddeningly, its own attribute field name for the same PHMA/GHMA/IHMA vocabulary (Habitat_Ty, Habitat_ID, GRSG_Categ, FinalHabit, Habitat_Management_Area, HMA). This actor queries all seven verified services server-side per asset, normalizes the field-name drift into one fixed code set, resolves overlapping designations to the single most restrictive tier, and attaches a plain-English stipulation summary — so you get one clean answer per coordinate instead of seven different GIS exports to reconcile by hand.

What it does

For each input coordinate, the actor:

1. Runs a server-side point-in-polygon query against all 7 GRSG sources.
2. Collects every intersecting designation (a point can legitimately fall in more than one overlapping polygon).
3. Picks the most restrictive designation as primary (PHMA > IHMA > RHMA > LCHMA > OHMA > GHMA > UDH > Anthro Mtn).
4. Attaches a stipulation-level flag and a plain-English developability note.
5. If the exact point is clear and you set radiusMiles, optionally checks for nearby habitat within that radius as siting context.

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 42.985, "lon": -109.865, "label": "Upper Green River Basin, WY" },
    { "lat": 39.7392, "lon": -104.9903, "label": "Downtown Denver, CO" }
  ],
  "radiusMiles": 10,
  "maxAssets": 25
}

Output fields

Field	Description
asset_label, asset_lat, asset_lon	The screened point.
in_habitat	True if the point falls inside any queried designation.
habitat_type / habitat_type_label	Code (PHMA/GHMA/IHMA/RHMA/LCHMA/OHMA/UDH/"Anthro Mtn") and plain-English label of the most restrictive overlapping designation.
stipulation_level	Editorial restrictiveness tier: high, high-moderate, moderate, low-moderate, low, special, or unknown.
developability_note	Plain-English summary of the typical permitting stipulations for that tier.
managing_source / managing_agency	Which of the 7 federal sources and agency produced the primary hit.
overlapping_designation_count / overlapping_designations	Full list when a point falls in more than one designation.
nearby_habitat_checked / nearby_habitat_found / nearby_habitat_types / radius_miles_used	Nearby-habitat context when the exact point is clear and radiusMiles > 0.
checked_sources / source_errors	Transparency on which of the 7 sources were queried and any that failed.
disclaimer, checked_at	Informational-use disclaimer and UTC run timestamp.

Coverage and honest limits

Verified live sources: BLM/USFS Wyoming 9-Plan, Utah, Nevada/California, Northwest Colorado, and Idaho/SW Montana GRSG Records of Decision, plus BLM statewide Colorado and Oregon services. A CLEAR result means no queried source intersects the point — it does not rule out habitat in a sub-region outside this coverage set (e.g. Montana outside the ID/SW-MT EIS area, Washington, North/South Dakota). This is an informational screen, not an official agency determination — confirm any siting or permitting decision with the relevant BLM Field Office or USFS Ranger District.

Use as an MCP tool

This actor is Pay-Per-Event priced and discoverable to AI agents (Claude, Cursor, etc.) via mcp.apify.com. Field-level output descriptions make it a clean, chainable grounding tool for automated site-due-diligence workflows — pair it with critical-habitat, wetlands, karst, or grid-proximity screeners for a full federal-land siting constraints rollup.

FAQ

Does this cover all 11 sage-grouse states? No — it covers the 7 verified federal sub-region services (WY, UT, NV/CA, CO, ID/MT, OR), which represent the large majority of BLM/USFS-managed sage-grouse habitat and energy-development activity. Montana areas outside the ID/SW-MT EIS, Washington, and the Dakotas are not yet covered.

What's the difference between PHMA, GHMA, and IHMA? PHMA (Priority Habitat Management Area) is the most restrictive tier — highest-value breeding, nesting, and winter habitat. GHMA (General Habitat Management Area) is the least restrictive designated tier. IHMA (Important Habitat Management Area), specific to the Idaho/SW Montana sub-region, sits between the two.

Is this a substitute for a Biological Assessment or formal NEPA consultation? No. It's a fast, informational pre-screen to catch sage-grouse exposure before you commit engineering and legal spend — always confirm with the managing BLM Field Office or USFS Ranger District before final siting.

Does a CLEAR result guarantee no sage-grouse issue? No — see Coverage and honest limits above. Use radiusMiles to also flag nearby habitat as a siting-margin warning.