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WWP Online Messenger #46
October 24, 2002
In Nevada: A Successful Legal Settlement
And A New Lawsuit And A Wolf Discussion Panel
in Pocatello, Idaho October 29, 2002
Success in WWP's Public Land Legal Efforts in Nevada
Major Lawsuit Against the Nevada BLM Is Settled
Here is the October 7, 2002 News release sent out by WWP
BLM Agrees to Drastic Reduction of Nevada Fire
Project
The Bureau of Land Management has reached a settlement
with three conservation groups that effectively douses the agency's scheme to
turn 47 square miles of old-growth and mature pinon-juniper forest in Nevada
into hundreds of millions of pounds of wood chips.
The BLM planned to spend more than $12 million in
federal fire funds targeted for "urban interface zones" to log vast wildlands
with 30-ton feller-buncher machines.
The settlement, filed Monday in federal district court
in Reno, calls for tree clearing on less than 15 percent of the original
project area. Most of the clearing will be carried out on lands less than a
mile from home sites.
"We're very pleased to have stopped the project," said
Todd Tucci of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, representing Western
Watersheds Project, the Committee for Idaho's High Desert and the American
Lands Alliance. "This was a clear case of a runaway federal agency working
below radar, under the guise of fire protection, to denude our treasured
public lands. The settlement is a victory for common-sense fire protection."
Removing pinon-juniper forests to stimulate grass growth
for federally subsidized public lands livestock grazing is a common BLM
practice in Nevada and other parts of the West. The most recent schemes in
Nevada, near Ely and Mount Wilson, would have cost $3.5 million per year for
four years.
The agency alleged that the Mount Wilson project, which
would have covered 34 square miles of public lands, was necessary to protect a
1.2-square-mile enclave of private homes. The Ely project comprised 13 square
miles of public lands.
The location of the Mount Wilson project -- 90 miles
south of Ely and about 20 miles from the Utah border -- is one of the most
sparsely populated areas in the United States.
Last spring WWP, CIHD and ALA filed a lawsuit to stop
the BLM plan. The lawsuit charged that both logging projects lacked scientific
basis and would severely damage the forest ecosystem. The conservation groups
also maintained that the BLM failed to comply with the National Environmental
Policy Act.
All three groups supported actions recommended by the
BLM near home sites but argued that the agency's plan to cut vast areas of
trees miles away from homes was a blatant misuse of federal funds.
In response to the lawsuit, the BLM sent a team of
firefighters and wildland specialists to examine the project area. Based on
its findings, the team submitted a radically modified plan that became the
basis of the settlement.
"Efforts now being fiercely debated in Congress would
strip the public of means to appeal destructive and wasteful projects like the
original Ely and Mount Wilson proposals," said CIHD director Katie Fite.
"Here, NEPA worked as it was intended. Everybody stepped back, took a second
look and came up with a science-based fire protection plan for these homes."
The settlement protects miles of mature and old-growth
pinon trees, a crucial food source for birds. Pinon nuts in the Mount Wilson
and Ely areas are also harvested by Native Americans for traditional uses and
by commercial pickers for sale to markets across the country.
"Each acre of mature pinon forest from this area is
capable of producing 250 pounds of food per acre for birds, mammals, rodents
and people every 5 years," said Montana forest advocate Penny Frazier.
Longtime Mount Wilson property owner Mike Wilkin
welcomed the settlement. "As a landowner in the area, I am pleased that this
project has been scaled back," he said." The original project would have
severely impacted this beautiful area without meeting the original goal of
home protection."
"These projects would have resulted in a massive
alteration of forests that are not contiguous to private lands; that, in
general, are nowhere near private lands; and that are not, by any stretch of
the imagination, in an urban interface zone," said Anne Martin, ALA field
director in Spokane.
Tucci added that the BLM settlement demonstrates the
importance of public involvement in decisions that impact public lands
management.
"Without public participation through the NEPA process,
including the ability to appeal and litigate, agencies will have free rein to
conduct fuels reduction projects on public lands without adequate public input
or the opportunity to challenge ill-conceived agency decisions," he said.
WWP's October 23, 2002 News Release follows:
A New Clean Water Act Lawsuit Is Filed Against The BLM In Nevada By
Western Watersheds Project, Forest Guardians and Committee For the High
Desert
Forest Guardians, Western Watersheds Project and the
Committee for The High Desert filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Bureau of
Land Management, alleging the agency has violated the Clean Water Act by
allowing livestock grazing to pollute streams and wetlands.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada just
days after the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, claims the BLM has
permitted cattle to foul the waters of several tributaries of the Humboldt
River, despite monitoring that shows gross violation of state water quality
standards.
The lawsuit aims to halt cattle grazing along polluted
streams and springs within the 536,000 acre Carico Lake Allotment, one of the
largest in the western United States, and to demonstrate that livestock
grazing that pollutes streams is illegal. The lawsuit alleges that the BLM has
violated Section 313 of the Clean Water Act, which prohibits federal agencies
from actions that contribute to or cause violations of water quality
standards.
"If we want healthy, functioning streams that produce
clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, and recreational values, then we must
eliminate livestock grazing, especially along degraded streams, as is the case
throughout the Carico Lake Allotment," said John Horning, executive director
of Forest Guardians.
In May 2000 the BLM released a report which
overwhelmingly concluded that cattle in and around streams, rivers and springs
directly causes water quality violations for temperature, fecal coliform (due
to excretion directly into the water), turbidity and sedimentation (due to
streambank trampling by cattle). However, the agency has done nothing since
the report was published to correct these violations on the Carico Lake
Allotment.
"With this lawsuit, we aim to hold all public land
ranchers accountable for violations of the Clean Water Act and to finally
assert that any grazing that causes or contributes to water pollution is
illegal," said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project,
underscoring the scope of the lawsuit.
Cattle are notorious for polluting streams, springs and
rivers. They routinely congregate in large numbers around rare and fragile
water sources, stripping away vegetation and trampling streambanks. Livestock
grazing on the Carico Lake Allotment is also damaging the habitat of sensitive
wildlife species such as the Western sage grouse and Northern goshawk, both of
which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Currently about 40,000
cattle graze on the allotment.
"As long as the BLM and other federal land management
agencies continue to bow to the livestock industry, we'll never meet the
promise of the Clean Water Act of restoring all streams, rivers and wetlands,"
said Katie Fite, spokeswoman for the Committee for The High Desert.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of actions taken
by the conservation groups in an effort to require federal agencies to comply
with environmental statutes as a means of eliminating or dramatically reducing
livestock grazing in the western United States.
Wolf Discussion Panel To Be Held At Idaho State University in
Pocatello, October 29, 2002
At 7:00 P.M. October 29, 2002 at the Idaho State University Student Union a
five person panel discussion on management of wolves in Idaho will be held.
Sponsored by ISU, the panelists are WWP Advisory Board Member and wolf
advocate, Dr. Ralph Maughan; Jon Marvel, Executive Director of Western
Watersheds Project; Ron Gillett, Stanley, Idaho Outfitter and outspoken wolf
critic; Bob Loucks, Lemhi County Rancher and member of the Idaho Wolf
Committee; and Carter Niemeyer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf manager
for Idaho.
Open mike audience questions will be encouraged after short opening remarks by
the panelists.