WWP Sues BLM to Protect Burnt
Creek Wilderness Study Area
Western Watersheds Project has sued
the Bureau of Land Management for violating federal
environmental laws and the Challis Resource
Management Plan on the Burnt Creek allotment in
east-central Idaho.
The allotment is part of the Burnt
Creek Wilderness Study Area. WWP contends that the
BLM issued livestock grazing permits and made
grazing management decisions for the allotment
without conducting a sufficient environmental
assessment required by federal law.
The lawsuit alleges that the BLM
failed to consider alternatives to livestock grazing
before issuing permits and took action before
environmental reviews were completed. The agency
also failed to comply with the Challis Resource
Management Plan, adopted in 1999, by allowing
livestock turnout on Burnt Creek when range
improvements were not functional or properly
maintained.
"Challis Resource Area personnel are
derelict in their duties and are disregarding their
own management plan," said Stew Churchwell, central
Idaho director Western Watersheds Project. "Year
after year, this has resulted in the degradation of
rare and valuable resources, yet the BLM continues
to deny it. Far worse, they have attempted to blame
the public for their negligence."
During the 2001 grazing season, the
agency determined that livestock grazing on Burnt
Creek had violated the terms of the permit by
exceeding stubble height standards and by livestock
trespass within the Burnt Creek exclosure. WWP, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM have
documented the same violations for several years.
Earlier this summer, Churchwell
provided the agencies with detailed reports of
livestock trespass in the exclosure and poor
ecological conditions within the allotment. The
reports supplemented findings Churchwell has filed
since the 2000 grazing season.
"The BLM's actions are unacceptable
and are postponing the resolution of problems," he
said.
The Burnt Creek allotment is in the
heart of the Salmon River Basin. The area is
critical spawning habitat for threatened bull trout.
Burnt Creek Wilderness Study Area,
which contains all of the allotment, borders the
116,000-acre Borah Peak Roadless Area, which the
U.S. Forest Service has recommended as wilderness.
The BLM's own Idaho Wilderness Study
Report notes: "The primitive nature of the
recommended area adds a spectacular example of
sagebrush- and grass-covered hills with pockets of
timber giving way to awesome, rugged mountains . . .
Both areas are dominated by the 12,655-foot Borah
Peak, the highest point in Idaho."
Under Churchwell's stewardship, WWP
is conducting its own conservation project at the
group's Greenfire Preserve on the East Fork of the
Salmon River near Challis. The project involves land
restoration, education and outreach.
LOOK AT the
Burnt Creek Complaint
This document is
in
MS Word format.
Here is a Copy of a Greenwire E-Report from
today (8/1/31) about the Southeast Oregon Resource
Management Plan Lawsuit. WWP, ONDA and CHD are well
represented by ONDA attorney, Mac Lacy in this
proceeding.
Enviros file suit in Oregon over
BLM wilderness policy, grazing
Natalie M. Henry, Greenwire reporter
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Nearly 5 million acres of grazing
lands in southeastern Oregon's Owyhee canyonlands
will offer the first legal test of Interior
Secretary Gale Norton's decision to halt new
wilderness designations on Bureau of Land Management
property.
In a recently filed lawsuit, three Western
environmental groups argue the Federal Land Policy
and Management Act requires BLM to continually
reassess land for wilderness resources. But because
of the Interior Department's new policy prohibiting
wilderness designations, environmentalists say there
is no hope for protecting the fragile canyonlands
long term.
Following a settlement last April with the state of
Utah, Norton told BLM officials nationwide that the
department would designate no new wilderness areas
except by act of Congress, and then only in 22.8
million acres of wilderness study areas (WSAs) BLM
had already inventoried in 1991.
In addition to questions of wilderness designation,
environmentalists charge that BLM has violated the
1934 Taylor Grazing Act. The act requires BLM to
determine which lands are "chiefly valuable for
livestock grazing," as written in the law. But the
groups say BLM failed to determine which lands in
the southeastern Oregon resource management plan
meet that criteria.
A spokeswoman for BLM's Vale District in Oregon,
Debbie Lyons, said the Utah settlement on wilderness
designations will not affect BLM land management in
southeastern Oregon because the settlement occurred
seven months after the Vale district completed its
resource management plan, which guides management on
4.6 million acres of the canyonlands for the next 15
to 20 years. The plan took seven years to complete
and was finalized in September 2002.
But Jon Marvel of the Western Watersheds Project,
one of the plaintiff groups, said BLM did a poor job
in its initial inventory of the WSAs in southeastern
Oregon, and that by law the agency is required to
continually assess resources values, including
wilderness resources. The "no new wilderness"
decision precludes that from happening, thereby
violating the Land Policy and Management Act, he
said.
The Owyhee canyonlands, a high desert region
bordering Idaho and Nevada, forms part of what is
considered the largest undeveloped, unprotected
wildland in the lower 48 states, according to the
Sierra Club.
BLM's 4.6 million acres, 98.7 percent of which is
designated for grazing, includes all of Oregon's
portion of the Owyhee River, including 100 miles of
stream designated under the Wild and Scenic Rivers
Act. The Owyhee flows through a remote, largely
roadless area where it has carved deep rhyolite rock
canyons over the past 14 million years, creating
"some of the most spectacular rhyolite canyons in
the world," Marvel said.
The lands also contain remnants of a sagebrush
steppe ecosystem, historic habitat for sage grouse,
mountain lions, bobcats, redband trout, loggerhead
shrike and the largest population of California
bighorn sheep in the country. Microbiotic crusts
also cover portions of the area, supporting unique
plant life. Such organisms are destroyed when walked
upon, especially by cattle, said Bill Martlett of
the Oregon Natural Desert Association, another
plaintiff group.
BLM officials acknowledge the region's unique
wilderness qualities and say they have tried to add
protected acreage to what the government already
owns. Lyons said BLM did take into consideration a
number of factors when drafting the new management
plan, such as wildlife habitat, livestock uses,
recreation and visual aesthetics, among other
things.
Dave Harmon of BLM's Portland, Ore., office said the
agency did add 3,280 acres to existing wilderness
study areas under the new resource management plan.
BLM had identified those acres in 1991 as places
that, if acquired, would be added to existing WSAs,
he said.
On the Taylor Grazing Act issue, environmentalists
hope the court will clarify the language of the law
to the benefit of grazing proponents and opponents
alike. To date, there is no legislative,
administrative or judicial history defining the
phrase "chiefly valuable." Congress offered no
legislative language to help define the term, nor
has BLM has never offered any rules, regulations or
guidelines on the issue. And to date, no court has
ever ruled on on the matter, Martlett said.
LOOK AT the
Southeast Oregon RMP Complaint
This document is
in
MS Word format.