Friends of Idaho Watersheds Project

This press release went out tonight (4/8/99).

FEDERAL COURT VOIDS GRAZING PERMITS FOR 1 MILLION ACRES IN OWYHEE COUNTY

Hailey, April 10, 1999

Idaho Watersheds Project (IWP) announced another major court victory today -- just a week after the Idaho Supreme Court ruled for the group in three state grazing cases.  The latest decision, from the federal court in Boise, voids 68 federal grazing leases covering 1 million acres in Owyhee County.

In a decision released this week, the U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill agreed with IWP and the Committee for Idaho's High Desert, that the Bureau of Land Management violated federal law when it issued the 68 permits in 1997.The court held that BLM failed to take the "hard look" at environmental effects which federal law requires.  The permits cover grazing on federal lands in the Owyhee Resource Area of southwestern Idaho.

"IWP is pleased the Court is holding BLM accountable for its refusal to follow federal law," said Jon Marvel, President of IWP.  "It is far past time for BLM to confront the degradation caused by livestock grazing and its own mismanagement."

"This case is important not only for Idaho, but many other parts of the West where BLM has failed to do environmental impact studies of grazing," said Laird Lucas, of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, who represents the groups in the Owyhee lawsuit.

In issuing its order, the court did not indicate what remedy it might order for the legal violations.  However, the groups intend to ask the Court to restrict grazing in critical environmental areas, such as redband trout streams in the Owyhee River drainage, until BLM completes the required environmental studies.  "We will probably be asking the Court to require BLM to protect critical resources from hot season grazing use until a complete environmental study is done," said Lucas.

"The BLM has consistently refused to take any action, even when it knows livestock are damaging our public resources.  I hope this court decision will force the BLM to step up and make the right decisions on its own. " said Marvel.