Conservation Groups Sue to Block Turnout of Cattle in Owyhee County, ID
On Wednesday March 26, 1997, Idaho Watersheds Project, an Idaho conservation organization with 730 members, and the Committee for Idaho's High Desert, an Idaho conservation group with 420 members, jointly filed a complaint against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Idaho Federal District Court in Boise requesting a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block the turn-out of cattle on the 260,000 acre Castle Creek Grazing Allotment located south of Grandview, Idaho in Owyhee County because the agency is in violation of the Clean Water Act, the Federal Land Policy Management Act, the Taylor Grazing Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and BLM regulations.
The two groups are represented by the Boise office of The Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, a non-profit environmental law center headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.
In an Analysis, Evaluation and Interpretation of the conditions on the Castle Creek Allotment released in February 1997, the Bureau of Land Management has documented the abject and total degradation of natural resources, and the continuous purposeful mismanagement of livestock by ranchers with 30 years of evidence. Even with this thorough report, the BLM has declined to take the necessary actions to protect damaged resources as required by law. Instead, the agency is proposing to permit cattle turn-out on this allotment by April 1 with no provisions to correct years of abuse. The conditions on the allotment's riparian areas are approaching the point where native fish like redband trout are at risk of extinction in the streams where they still exist. The ecological condition of hundreds of thousands of acres of the allotment is in poor and declining status, while water quality violates Idaho water quality standards in all creeks on the allotment.
Jon Marvel, President of Idaho Watersheds Project, stated: "It's time for the BLM to step up and take action to protect our public lands. It's too bad it will take a federal judge to make them do their job."
Contacts: Jon Marvel : (208)
788-2290.
Laird Lucas, LAW Fund: (208) 342-7024