WWP
to Federal Court: BLM Violates
Law With Utah Grazing Permits
Western Watersheds Project today asked a U.S.
District Court in Salt Lake City to cancel 149 public-lands grazing permits
issued by the Bureau of Land Management in northern Utah, saying the permits
violate federal law.
The permits, issued by the agency in
2001, cover 77 allotments on nearly 1.5 million acres of BLM lands in
Tooele, Rich and Box Elder counties. These lands provide habitat for a wide
variety of wildlife, including elk, deer, sage grouse and cutthroat trout.
WWP claims the BLM failed to monitor
and record the impacts of livestock grazing on these species and their
habitat as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The
conservation group says the agency ignored the data of independent
scientists and its own staff that revealed grazing impacts such as soil
erosion, habitat destruction and water-quality degradation in streams.
"The science is in, and it is clear:
grazing in arid places such as Utah takes a heavy environmental toll," said
Dr. John Carter, an ecologist in Logan who directs WWP's operations in
Utah. "Cows destroy streams, grasses and soils, which, in turn, harms all
kinds of birds, fish and wildlife."
"We presented BLM with detailed reports
showing this damage, but they ignored it and said grazing has no significant
environmental impact," Carter added. "This is not only bad science but also
a violation of federal law."
WWP's motion charges that BLM has
repeatedly failed its obligation under NEPA to "study, develop and discuss
appropriate alternatives" to "status quo" grazing.
"Never did BLM consider a reduction of
livestock numbers for the vast majority of the allotments," the court
document reads. "Never did BLM consider excluding livestock from sensitive
or unsuitable areas of the allotments."
"We are asking the federal court to
uphold our nation's environmental laws, since BLM will not do it," said WWP
executive director Jon Marvel. "In this case, the BLM swept under the rug
any consideration of the harms of livestock grazing or alternatives to
protect our vulnerable public lands."
WWP's motion is the latest chapter in a
lawsuit filed in May 2002. In that filing, Carter noted that only eight of
32 stream sites assessed in Box Elder County were determined to be in proper
functioning condition, while the remaining sites were degraded.
Moreover, of 208 springs believed to exist on
BLM lands in Box Elder County, none were assessed. The BLM failed to review
the sites despite a record of decision and rangeland program summary for the
area that revealed 124 springs and 16 perennial streams to be in danger of
dewatering and loss due to livestock grazing and trampling.
WWP submitted detailed monitoring and
inventory reports as well as extensive scientific studies cataloging a broad
swath of environmental degradation from livestock grazing.
"The BLM failed to provide an analysis of
these springs and streams and failed to resolve how its current assessments
could find such a small number of 'nonfunctional' streams in the face of its
analysis in 1986," said Carter.
The federal lands under BLM management
in Rich, Tooele and Box Elder counties share many geographical and
ecological features. The lands are dominated by sagebrush and salt desert
shrub ecosystems wholly unsuited to livestock grazing.
Historically, public lands in northern
Utah have provided sustainable habitat for a variety of fish and wildlife
species, including Lahontan cutthroat trout listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act.
Scientific studies have long documented the
adverse effects of livestock grazing on these lands, the lower elevations of
which receive less than 12 inches of precipitation per year on average.
Cattle typically gather around shady, streamside riparian areas, denuding
vegetation, eliminating shady cover over streams, trampling stream banks,
filling streams with sediment and fouling the water with fecal
contamination.
A court hearing and decision on WWP's motion
are expected by this summer.
LOOK AT
the brief filed by WWP
This document is in
MS Word format.
Federal Court Expands Order to Protect
Wolves
in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area
Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn
Winmill on Thursday renewed an injunction that fully protects wolves on
public lands in Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area for a second
consecutive grazing season even if predations of livestock by wolves occur
in the SNRA.
Winmill also clarified the injunction
sought by Western Watersheds Project and the Idaho Conservation League to
include protection of wolves on private lands in the SNRA.
Furthermore, at the request of WWP
and ICL, the judge accelerated by three years the U.S. Forest Service's
schedule for environmental analyses of livestock grazing allotments in the
SNRA. The analyses will ultimately determine whether grazing must be
reduced or discontinued because of adverse effects on wildlife in the SNRA.
"Judge Winmill's decision is a great
one for wolves and a necessary one for the Forest Service, which clearly
needs this kind of direction to do its job," said Jon Marvel, executive
director of WWP.
While the court decision stops short
of prohibiting grazing on allotments, it sends a clear reminder to the
Forest Service and livestock operators in the SNRA: "Wolves will not be
killed, even when sheep or cattle occupy their habitat and pay the price,"
in Marvel's words.
"Since last year's ruling, it's been
business as usual for the Forest Service," said Justin Hayes, program
director of ICL. "The agency has changed nothing. With another grazing
season approaching, we had no choice but to ask the court again to prevent
the killing of wolves in the SNRA."
Under Winmill's latest ruling, the
Forest Service must complete by Sept. 30 the first of three environmental
analyses of grazing allotments in the SNRA. The agency must complete two
other evaluations before the 2004 and 2005 grazing seasons, respectively.
In his initial ruling in July 2002,
Winmill cited Forest Service "violations" in its management of wolves in
the SNRA. That decision sought to strike "a proper balance" between "the
primacy of the value of wildlife" under the Organic Act and the
"conditional value" of livestock grazing.
Winmill ruled that the Forest
Service, which manages the SNRA, violated the Organic Act that created the
area by failing to consider whether livestock grazing is "substantially
impairing" wolf populations. He added that the Organic Act does not
include grazing as a "historic" or "pastoral" value.
The renewed injunction continues to
bind not only the Forest Service but also the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service in protecting wolf populations in the SNRA.
Despite the presence of wolves in the
area, some 4,470 sheep and 2,500 cattle are allowed to graze on 28 Forest
Service allotments in the SNRA.
"Wolves are an important part of how nature
is supposed to work in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area," said Laird
Lucas of Advocates for the West, representing WWP and ICL. "They could
draw thousands of people to Idaho to see them, as they do in Yellowstone.
The injunction against killing wolves in the SNRA will help restore the
ecosystem while jump-starting the economy in central Idaho."
For readers interested, Judge
Winmill's decision can be downloaded
as a pdf file from the following Idaho Federal Court web site:
http://www.id.uscourts.gov/wconnect/wc.dll?usdc_racer~get_case_jb~4:1-cv-389~~All+Documents~on~PUID=RESTRICTED
PDF
format requires FREE
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
