WWP Files Suit to Protect 250,000 acres of Colorado Rangelands, Canada Lynx, and Endangered Uncompahgre Butterfly
For Immediate Release: July 8, 2009
Contact: Erik Ryberg, (520) 622-3333
Today Western Watersheds Project filed suit in Federal Court in Denver, Colorado to stop a 250,000 acre grazing project located on Colorado's Pike-San Isabel National Forest.
The grazing plans call for a continuation of historic grazing in the area, which even the Forest Service has acknowledged will harm water quality, range vegetation, wildlife habitat, and soil productivity beyond federal standards.
Of twenty-nine monitored sites in the project area, two-thirds are not meeting standards, and half of those are getting worse. Forest Service internal reports show that water quality has been significantly damaged from grazing that has occurred in and next to the streams and wetlands on the allotment, and wildlife has also suffered from loss of vegetation and from soil erosion.
The grazing has been so severe that the Forest Service's wildlife specialists stated that if it didn't change, the Forest Service was risking a widespread elk die-off.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service has issued new ten-year grazing leases that continue grazing as it has been conducted in the past, with no change in the numbers grazed or the time the livestock is permitted to graze.
"Sometimes you look at this stuff and you just have to shake your head," said Erik Ryberg, the attorney representing Western Watersheds Project. "The Forest Service specialists found evidence of overgrazing everywhere they looked, but their leadership refused to do anything about it."
Forest Service biologists reported that continued grazing as it has been done in the previous three to five years would have adverse effects to the Canada lynx, Mexican spotted owl, and Uncompahgre fritillary butterfly, all species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The new plan calls for increased monitoring of environmental effects, but requires no change in the basic livestock grazing patterns. "This plan essentially calls for them to spend money looking at the problem instead of making the needed changes to protect the land," Ryberg said. "We hope a federal judge will help them see the need to take a different approach."
