Since the last Watersheds Messenger Western Watersheds Project has been working overtime to cope with the continuing assault on public lands across the west by the current administration in Washington. The result of these thousands of collective hours of staff, board and WWP’s lawyers’ time has been some very significant victories for WWP.

    On August 11, 2006 federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill awarded WWP a preliminary injunction blocking parts of the Bureau of Land Management’s revised livestock grazing regulations. The parts enjoined by the Court are the major reductions in BLM’s obligations to involve the public in its decision-making process for grazing actions on public land. The new regulations sought to create enormous difficulties for all members of the public in seeking to influence BLM grazing management for the better across the west. The injunctive relief will prevent those from taking effect at least until the litigation is decided by the court.

    WWP continues to seek additional injunctive relief for other provisions of the BLM grazing regulations that will effectively privatize water rights and livestock fencing, pipelines and related installations on the public lands and that would also allow the BLM up to ten years to modify livestock grazing if the agency determines that cattle or sheep are damaging public land.

    In his decision partially granting injunctive relief, Judge Winmill stated: “ The Court finds that WWP has a strong argument that the FEIS violates NEPA and FLPMA by (1) improperly minimizing the detrimental effects of the changes on public input, and (2) failing to contain information from which the Court and public could evaluate the limitations on public input contained in the new regulations. Moreover, WWP has shown the necessary possibility of irreparable harm. The public input of groups like WWP will be limited, as discussed above, and irreparable harm could result from the BLM making decision(s) without the full public input mandated by NEPA.”

    WWP believes that the outcome of the entire litigation looks favorable for our side, but the court case will take another several months to unfold.

    On July 14, 2006 WWP filed litigation to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to list the greater sage grouse under the protections of the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s denial was made in January 2005, and since then the conditions for sage grouse across the west have continued to decline.

    On June 14, 2006 WWP filed a petition to list the Big Lost River Whitefish as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This isolated native fish no longer is found in over 60% of its historic habitat in the Big Lost River watershed in central Idaho (please see Jen Nordstrom’s article in this newsletter for more about the Big Lost River watershed) and its numbers have been diminished by an estimated 97% from historic levels. Most of the damage to the habitat of this fish has been caused by livestock production causing sedimentation of spawning streams and dewatering of tributaries as well as the mainstem of the Big Lost River through irrigation diversions.

    Also in June, Judge Winmill granted WWP’s injunction request preventing domestic sheep grazing on more than 2/3 of central Idaho’s Smiley Creek grazing allotment in 2006. The allotment is located in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and includes stream habitat for three listed fish species (chinook salmon, steehead and bull trout). It also provides a home for Rocky Mountain Goats and wolves a potential recovery habitat for Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep.

    In other WWP legal news WWP is still awaiting a decision in another important administrative appeal of a BLM decision in Owyhee County, Idaho affecting the 70,000 acre Nickel Creek allotment. The allotment is a critical area for sage grouse habitat and has numerous streams and springs that have been badly abused by cattle over many years. The Phoenix-based administrative law judge in the appeal provided thoughtful oversight to the weeklong hearing in Boise last year, and WWP is anticipating a favorable decision in the case.

    WWP has settled its litigation against the Salmon- Challis National Forest over the management of the Spud Creek grazing allotment near WWP’s Greenfire Preserve in the East Fork of the Salmon River watershed in central Idaho. The case claimed the Forest service failed to comply with its Land and Resource Management Plan by issuing an annual operating instruction to the permittees on the allotment without requiring them to maintain the fences and livestock watering systems on the allotment. WWP brought this case because our subsidiary Valley Sun L.L.C. Is the majority grazing permittee (as a preferred applicant) on the Spud Creek allotment. Valley Sun is not currently grazing livestock on the allotment, but the Forest service was requiring that Valley Sun carry out numerous onerous maintenance work on the allotment without requiring the same level of compliance from the other cattle permittee on the allotment, Wayne and Melodie Baker.

    The settlement, negotiated successfully by Advocates For The West attorney Judi Brawer for WWP, requires a new analysis of grazing on the allotment and mandates that the Forest Service determine if there is sufficient water in one unit of the allotment, the Joe Jump pasture, to permit any livestock grazing at all. In the meantime that unit will be rested from livestock use.

    WWP attorney Todd Tucci has successfully settled an Endangered Species Act lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to comply with the law’s requirements for a 90 day finding on a listing petition for the Columbia Sharp-Tailed Grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus columbianus) filed by WWP and several other conservation groups. The Service has now agreed to a timetable that will be court-enforced for the 90 day finding and a later 12 month determination of qualification for listing under the ESA.

    The largest remaining population of this charismatic upland bird species is in Idaho. It formerly was abundant in many other western states but has declined greatly in numbers. The Columbian Sharp-tailed grouse was first reported by the Lewis and Clark expedition in May of 2006 in what is now Oregon.

    Finally, in an apparently unprecedented decision from the Department of the Interior’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, Judge James Heffernan of Salt Lake City awarded WWP over $42,000 in attorneys fees in WWP’s appeal win over the Nevada BLM in the Spanish Ranch-Squaw Valley allotments northwest of Elko.

    Those funds will go to the hard working WWP attorneys at Advocates For The West (www.advocateswest.org) in Boise: Laird Lucas, Judi Brawer, Laurie Rule and Todd Tucci WWP would like to extend a special thanks to all of them for their hard work !

Jon Marvel is executive director of WWP.  He lives in Hailey, Idaho.