Disputed federal rangeland insurance discontinued

The USDA’s Risk Management Agency has discontinued a crop insurance program that farmers and ranchers in Teton County say cost them thousands of dollars in premiums, but failed to protect them in the extreme drought years of 2006 and 2007.
Collins-area farmer and rancher Brett DeBruycker is still trying to get the state’s congressional delegation to require the Risk Management Agency to go back and “fix” the underlying problems with the Group Risk Plan Rangeland insurance, but officials with RMA say they don’t think a review and retroactive changes are likely.
John Lockie, a risk management specialist with the RMA office in Billings, said the GRP Rangeland policy was offered as pilot program in 39 counties in central and eastern Montana for the crop years of 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. The plan was offered in partnership with private insurance agencies with the federal crop insurance program subsidizing the plan. An estimated 22.5 million out of 45.6 million acres of rangeland in these counties were insured through the program.
The GRP Rangeland offered farmers and ranchers the opportunity to purchase crop insurance on their rangeland so that if drought occurred and they had little or no rangeland production, they could file a loss claim and receive an insurance benefit that could be used to buy hay for their livestock to replace the lost pasture.
The program used statistics gathered by the USDA’s Montana Agricultural Statistics Service to calculate rangeland conditions in each covered county. Since there is no standard measurement of rangeland production, the GRP Rangeland policy based its coverage conditions on dryland hay production, figuring that dryland hay production would echo rangeland production. In other words, if there wasn’t enough rain to grow much dryland hay, there probably wasn’t enough rain to produce grass on rangeland.
As a group risk plan, the “trigger” or base loss level at which the plan would cover farmers and ranchers for their losses was based on dryland hay figures throughout a county, not on the individual dryland hay production of each covered farm and ranch. In the first year of the program, 2005, the trigger was based on tons per acre of production; and in the 2006, 2007 and 2008, the trigger was based on net hay production countywide.
Lockie said the program was based on a similar crop insurance product used in the Midwest, where it worked well. Counties in the Midwest are generally smaller than those in central and eastern Montana, he said, and weather patterns are likely to affect all or none of farmers in a given county. Since this is a “group risk” plan, he said, it is based on production (or loss of production) in a county. In the Midwest, the plan worked as it should have because, in general, all the farmers’ production levels in a given county coverage area were very similar.
Central and eastern Montana, however, proved to be a different situation. Because the counties are so large, it is common for weather to vary widely from one corner of a county to the other. In Teton County, for example, spotty rain showers meant that some dryland hay production was average to good while in other parts of the county dryland hay production was zero in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Based on the net hay production figures for Teton County from Montana Agricultural Statistics Service, the plan did not pay for any losses in 2006 or 2007 despite the fact that those two years were extremely dry and rangeland production in many areas was awful.
Beginning with the denial of loss claims for the 2006 crop year, Lockie’s agency in Billings started getting calls from producers across the state and in Wyoming, where the program was also offered in select counties. “I totally can commiserate,” Lockie said.
But, even though the RMA was aware of concerns, the federal agency continued to market the plan. Some producers, however, deemed the plan unworkable and did not try to insure through it in 2007 and 2008, Lockie said.
In the wake of these concerns, Lockie said the RMA and a private insurance contractor held a series of meetings on the GRP Rangeland policy in this year in Lewistown, Malta, Glasgow, Miles City and Billings and in Gillette and Cheyenne, Wyo. The RMA listened to comments from farmers and ranchers and crop insurance agents, and after getting an earful, the private insurance companies recommended the RMA “terminate” the program, Lockie said.
For the 2009 crop year, the Risk Management Agency is offering a new insurance plan called the “Pasture, Rangeland and Forage-Rainfall Index” program. This plan will again insure pasture against production losses, but the trigger will not be net countywide dryland hay production. Instead, the trigger will be weather data with the actual figures compared to historic average. The coverage area will no longer be based on counties, but will instead be based on 12-square-mile areas and will be a “group risk” plan within each 12-mile square unit.
Weather data will be recorded in two-month intervals with six index intervals each year. Farmers and ranchers who choose to participate must insure their rangeland in at least two of those six intervals. The smaller geographic units plus the flexibility in insurance levels and the choice of intervals should make this plan much more accurate and a better product for producers, Lockie said. More information on the new plan is available on the RMA Web site. Enrollment in the plan will be open soon and will close at the end of November.
Lockie said he has never seen the RMA go back and adjust a program to change the coverage triggers in the past and he is not hopeful, now that the old plan has been terminated, that RMA will undertake a review. “The likelihood at this point is virtually none,” he said.
For some farmers and ranchers in Teton County, however, the creation of a new program is not encouraging.
In late June, Brett DeBruycker, whose family has large farm and ranch holdings in several areas in Teton County, started a petition drive, asking other farmers and ranchers to sign a letter to U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus and U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, asking them to question the RMA about the program’s failures, to require the RMA to make changes in the program before continuing to market it and to review the 2006 and 2007 claim denials that significantly harmed producers insured through the program.
The RMA needs to go back and help producers in the county who bought the insurance in good faith and then did incur losses that should have been indemnified, DeBruycker said. “Ranchers paid a premium for this insurance coverage and we deserve to receive those payments for the 2006 and 2007 losses,” he said.
Now the RMA has come back with a new insurance program, DeBruycker said, but if the federal agency doesn’t repair the rangeland insurance program’s credibility, sign up might be nil. DeBruycker says every farmer and rancher he’s talked with says there is no way they’ll waste more money on a rangeland insurance program that probably won’t help them in a drought situation.
“Their trust in the system is gone,” DeBruycker said. “It won’t matter how good the new program is, unless they go back and pay the past indemnification.”
Part of what bothers DeBruycker and others, like Joe Dellwo, who ranches with his family in the Blackleaf area west of Bynum, is the way the RMA set the loss-payment trigger. They argue that using the MASS statistics for net dryland hay production was faulty, and that better, more accurate hay production figures were available from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.
Dellwo says his family’s ranch was insured through the GRP Rangeland program in 2006 and 2007. “In 2006, we were shocked that it didn’t pay because it was the worst grass year that we’d ever had up to 2007, which was even worse,” he said. After the 2006 claim was denied, he called Tester’s office and was assured that the matter was being looked into.
After the 2007 denial, he called the Montana Agricultural Statistics Service and talked with Director Peggy Stringer, who told him how her office gathered net dryland hay production records, which RMA used as a proxy for rangeland conditions. The MASS figures for Teton County in 2007 showed the dryland alfalfa yield as 1.1 tons per acre and all-other-dryland hay yield as 1.06 tons/acre.
Dellwo says he next called the Teton County FSA office and asked for certified dryland hay production figures from FSA. Executive Director Sherwin Smith pulled those numbers for Teton County and found that dryland alfalfa and alfalfa mixed forage production in 2007 averaged about .1 ton per acre. In fact, Smith said, for other dryland grass hay programs, his agency documented large production losses in 2007. The Teton County FSA Committee set the 2007 pasture loss figure at 50 percent for 2007, based on clipping studies completed by the local Natural Resources and Conservation Service Office and the Teton County Extension Office.
Dellwo says on his ranch, they didn’t even cut any dryland hay in 2007. “There just was nothing there.” So, he said, after spending thousands of dollars on insurance that didn’t help, his family also had to go out and buy hay or face downsizing the cow herd.
“It’ll take me five years to pay off the hay that we needed to survive,” Dellwo said. “If you want a poster child for why this isn’t working, come to Teton County because this was ground zero last year.”
DeBruycker says portions of Teton County (including the Blackleaf-Bynum area) have been in drought persistently going as far back as 1996, but 2006 and 2007 were particularly bad. “There were many grass species that just flat died during that stretch,” he said.
By the end of 2007, he said, every reservoir on his family’s ranch was bone dry and every spring was either dry or producing at just 10 percent to 20 percent of its capacity.
In 2007, with those dire range conditions, ranchers in Glacier, Toole, Pondera and Teton counties purchased all the extra hay that was produced in central and north-eastern Montana, DeBruycker says. “There was an incredible amount of hay that was brought into this part of the world over the last winter,” he said.
Ranchers who couldn’t afford hay, shipped their cattle straight to auction and heavily culled older and less productive cows, reducing their herds to minimal levels. Ranchers who could found pasture outside of the region and trucked their cattle off-ranch. Locally, DeBruycker said, some of their pastures that would usually have accommodated 100 cow-calf pairs could only carry 25 to 30 pairs. Carrying capacity was a 25 percent to 30 percent of what it is normally, he said.
This grim scenario not only affected the financial viability of local ranches, it hit the ranchers themselves hard emotionally. Guys who used to be jovial and optimistic were somber and apprehensive, he said, adding that the drought “really affected people’s lives.”
Dellwo was so concerned that he asked a representative from Tester’s office to come to Choteau earlier this summer and listen to ranchers who wanted to tell them about the failure of the GRP Rangeland program. He said four or five took time out of their day to meet with the field representative.
For her part, Stringer says her agency’s net production statistics for the county are accurate, but they are based on only on reports from ranchers and farmers who had hay production. Those who didn’t cut any hay, didn’t file any reports.
“The issue is not our data, the issue is the program,” Stringer said. “I don’t understand how you can say hay production is the same as range production and equate the two.”
Another issue is that the Group Risk Plan is “all county or none,” she said. If a few producers got rain showers and produced hay, then the production level was such that the program did not trigger, she said.
“It’s very frustrating for us and I think it’s frustrating for the RMA folks as well,” she said.
Baucus and Tester both urged the RMA to offer a more dependable and accurate crop insurance product to Montana ranchers and the Pasture, Rangeland and Forage-Rainfall Index program is the new program they requested.
In a statement on the issue, Baucus said, “I’m committed to making sure Montana’s producers have the tools they need to thrive in Big Sky Country. I’m pleased the USDA is moving forward with a solution for the coming year. Producers can rest assured, I’m watching this issue closely and will continue to push the USDA to do what’s right for Montana.”

Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day per comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.

In a telephone call with reporters yesterday, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne described the new rules as a "narrow regulatory change" that "will provide clarity and certainty to the consultation process under the Endangered Species Act."

But environmentalists and congressional Democrats blasted the proposal as a last-minute attempt by the administration to bring about dramatic changes in the law. For more than a decade, congressional Republicans have been trying unsuccessfully to rewrite the act, which property owners and developers say imposes unreasonable economic costs...

The new rules would also limit the impact of the administration's decision in May to list the polar bear as threatened with extinction because of shrinking sea ice.

At the time of that decision, Kempthorne said he would seek changes to the Endangered Species Act on the grounds that it was inflexible, adding that it had not been significantly modified since 1986. In a statement yesterday, the Interior Department declared that even if a federal action such as the permitting of a power plant would lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, the decision would not trigger a federal review "because it is not possible to link the emissions to impacts on specific listed species such as polar bears."

Kempthorne said the new regulations included that language "so we don't inadvertently have the Endangered Species Act seen as a back door to climate-change policy that was never, ever intended."....

Range tenants: Cattle and wildlife could benefit from program
Tribune Editorial
Salt Lake Tribune

State Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, wants to take a number of trophy game tags away from the public and give them to groups of ranchers who have had grazing permits partially suspended, reducing the number of cattle they can run on public lands.
The grazing associations would then auction the hunting permits to wealthy hunters and use the proceeds to grow forage and develop water sources with a goal of improving the carrying capacity so their grazing permits can be restored in full.
At first glance, Stowell's proposed legislation sounds like a terrible idea. It seems like the little guy, the wildlife and Utah's arid, fragile public lands would be the losers. It sounds like the ranchers and the rich hunters would win again.
But what if Stowell's plan would benefit wildlife as well as cattle; Joe Hunter as well as Joe Rancher? What if it resulted in better habitat, more game animals and more permits to hunt them?
A similar program conducted by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in cooperation with public land management agencies already exists. Permits are given to sportsmen and conservation organizations for auction, and the groups use the money for habitat improvement projects under the watchful eye of DWR.
But could projects be developed that would benefit both livestock and wildlife? State wildlife officials and federal land managers say yes.
And would the public accept more cattle on public lands? That's the great unknown.
Grazing on Utah's public lands is a touchy topic. They're marginal cattle range at best, easily damaged by plodding, four-footed plant processors. If wildlife and the environment were the sole considerations, you'd remove all livestock from the scene. But that's not going to happen.
Ranching is a Utah tradition, and in some locales an economic engine. And federal Bureau of Land Management property, by law, is managed for multiple uses, which puts cattlemen and conservationists at odds.
Stowell's proposal could bridge that gap. If he clones the existing state permit auction program, and requires habitat restoration projects that benefit livestock and wildlife equally, it could work.
For hunters, it would mean fewer permits now, with the potential for a lot more later. For grazing groups, it would mean the restoration of suspended grazing rights. And for the rest of us, a healthier economy, and healthier public lands to enjoy.
The senator should proceed, with caution. His proposal could be a winner . . . as long as there are no losers.

Otero Mesa in drillers' crosshairs

To drill or not to drill? As rising gasoline prices make consumers increasingly aware of energy issues, that's the question for environmentally sensitive areas across the West.

In New Mexico, the crosshairs are zeroed on Otero Mesa, a scenic 1.2 million-acre expanse of yuccas, cholla cactus and knee-high gramma grass.

Recreational options include primitive camping, wildlife viewing, photography, horseback riding or hiking. There are pronghorn antelope, burrowing owls, prairie dogs, aplomado falcons, deer, oryx, coyotes, jackrabbits and quail.

"On the grasslands, there are particular species and different animal life that just doesn't exist anywhere else," said Deanna Archuleta, Southwest regional director for The Wilderness Society.

Otero Mesa still has rutted sections of the 1860s-era Butterfield Trail stagecoach route and a massive underground reservoir that could be tapped to supply fresh water to southern New Mexico communities.

Drilling opponents warn that groundwater could be contaminated by oil and gas production, but others insist technological advances allow extraction of petroleum or gas without harming the aquifer.

"The drilling technology makes the risk reasonable. The chances of contamination are very, very small," said Bill Childress, director of the Bureau of Land Management's district office in Las Cruces.

This isn't exactly virgin wilderness, either.

Decades of access and development are evident, including a web of roads, scattered wells and a communications tower that rises over the grasslands. There are pipelines for exporting natural gas and oil.

Still, The Wilderness Society listed Otero Mesa among 17 locations in eight Western states that the group says are threatened by plans for drilling. Each is documented in a 2006 report, "Too Wild to Drill."

Along with Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, other sites include the Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming, Utah's Red Rock Wilderness, Carrizo Plains National Monument in California and Colorado's Roan Plateau and Vermillion Basin.

High-profile public lands, according to The Wilderness Society, are in immediate danger from drilling proposals. Group members worry about roads, drill pads and staging areas that accompany oil and gas production.

"Given the current pressure to drill domestically, the risk is the biggest it's ever been," Archuleta said. "At Otero Mesa, it's a threat to the aquifer, to wildlife and to the landscape."

Yet high gasoline costs apparently are swinging public opinion in favor of drilling. A July 1 poll by the Pew Research Center showed a significant change during a five-month span on the drilling question.

The number of those polled who said they considered increasing energy supplies more important than protecting the environment climbed from 54 percent in February to 60 percent over the five-month span, according to the poll. The number who favor oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge also increased.

After a one-hour drive east from El Paso, Texas, a cattle guard at the Texas-New Mexico border marks the southern boundary of Otero Mesa.

Glance at a map, and it's a checkerboard of federal, state and private lands. There are remote ranches that have been managed by families for generations. Cattle graze on the grasses or collect at stock tanks.

The area also has an 80-year history of drilling. One well, dating to 1929, is located along a graded road, identifiable by a rusty pipe that extends skyward from a mound of concrete in the ground.

Two modern gas wells — one drilled in 1997, the other in 2001 — were leased before a BLM resource management plan was drafted in 2005.

Compared with the surrounding landscape, the roughly three-acre sites are visibly different. Gravel has replaced topsoil that was removed for drilling operations. Childress said both locations will have to be restored.

"These wells have gas in them," Childress said. "How much gas is anyone's guess."

Indeed, Otero Mesa is what those in the oil business call a wildcatter area, meaning the wells are exploratory and reserves are undetermined.

The BLM has proposed leases for 13,000 acres on Otero Mesa. Most are for 10 years, through terms can lengthen if a well produces. The current proposal allows drilling on a maximum 1,589 acres.

Archuleta said the policy is shortsighted and won't produce an immediate reduction in gasoline prices. Echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous environmental groups, she said oil companies already have enough wells on public lands elsewhere.

"If we think that's going to save us from $4 gas, we're dreaming," she said.

That BLM's plan was controversial, with diverse groups that included sportsmen, ranchers, environmentalists and state agencies urging stronger protections.

Gov. Bill Richardson, supporting an effort by a group called Coalition for Otero Mesa, asked the BLM to designate 500,000 acres of grasslands as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

"This type of designation would provide another way to protect the area's wildlife habitat, wilderness characteristics and critical groundwater supply, focusing on the importance of this thriving desert ecosystem," Richardson said.

However, there already are numerous areas designated as ACEC that are protected from drilling, including scenic buttes at Alamo Mountain, Cornudas Mountain and Wind Mountain, along with several grassland sites.

Childress, whose office is responsible for oversight of Otero Mesa, noted the agency's mandate is to open the land and oversee it for all interested parties, including oil companies.

Childress defended the BLM proposal, saying no more than 5 percent of grasslands can be disturbed at any time and sites must be remediated to help disturbed soil and plants grow back.

While up to 90 percent of BLM lands are open to drilling under the plan, Childress said only 800 to 900 acres of Otero Mesa's 1.2 million would be permanently disturbed by roads, footpads and other drilling-related activities.

"I think that's a pretty reasonable percentage," he said.

To Clean a Dirt Tank and the Real Loss

By Rebecca Powell, 7-22-08

Part of an ongoing series about the Doña Ana County Wilderness Debate. For more on the debate and the proposals, see A Biased Observer of the Doña Ana County Wilderness Debate, For Some, Wilderness is Simple, Pearce Submits People’s Proposal to the House, and More Than a Yes or No to Wilderness.

Type in grazing on public lands in any search engine and opinions and diatribes pop up like dandelions. Those calling for the end of grazing cite environmental and economic factors. Environmental arguments against grazing have been countered by Allan Savory, though many still claim bovines decimate the land. Arguments on the basis of economics complain ranchers pay a pittance to graze, a fraction of what it would cost to lease the land from a private owner.

I am not a range specialist, a botanist, or a biologist. The environmental impact of grazing will be left for others to argue. However, I do know a little about time. People pay for me my time, time I spend thinking or writing. I try to live my life by advice I was given as a teenager: where I allocate my time reveals what I value. So when I heard it took Tom Mobley, a rancher and retired banker, five months to navigate the Bureau of Land Management’s permit process to clean a dirt tank, I blanched and dialed his number.

Mobley agreed to meet with me at his home, north of Las Cruces. I arrived 15 minutes late.

On a ranch, you fix what breaks. Fences are mended, levees repaired, tractors older than grandchildren are made to run. Fixing what is broken is half the job. Summer floods breached a dirt tank on Mobley’s grazing allotment in the Sierra de las Uvas. The Citizen’s Proposal recommends 11,068 acres in the Sierra de las Uvas be designated as wilderness. Mobley grazes 900 acres adjoining his ranch of the proposed wilderness, now a Wilderness Study Area. Rains in the Sierra De Las Uvas come fast and sudden, carving rivers down the slopes, rushing to the Rio Grande. The breached dirt tank stores a little of the West’s most precious resource for livestock and passing wildlife.

Ranchers grazing on BLM land typically hold permits for ten years. The permits place the upkeep of all existing improvements squarely on the shoulders of permittees, the ranchers. After monsoon season, Mobley set about the task of cleaning and fixing the dirt tank. Cleaning a dirt tank on BLM land involves a lot more than a skid steer loader. A whole lot of paper, people and time are involved in the fixing of a levee and the clearing of mesquite.

First, he filled out the appropriate paperwork. The dirt tank had washed out before and Mobley knew the drill. A BLM employee went with him to the site of the breach, inspected the site, took photographs, and assured him she would issue the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An EIS is drafted every time repairs are needed; regardless of if the repairs have happened before. A new EIS was drafted and then sent to the interested parties. Twenty-four people, many of them tied to different conservation groups, received copies of the report and were given thirty days to comment. No one commented. Mobley was free to begin fixing the dirt tank, more or less.

Mobley wanted to use a skid steer loader to fix the breach. Shovels could have been used, if he had had the manpower, but the story of modern ranching includes the replacement of manual labor with machines. One man can do the work of twenty. BLM allowed the use of the skid steer loader, provided he park on visquine, a tarp. Mobley had hoped to cut back the mesquite lining the dam and apply an herbicide to stop their regrowth. BLM said he could cut the mesquite, but only with hand tools, and no herbicide could be used.

It took three days of actual work to fix the tank and five months of bureaucratic swimming. Mobley said none of the regulations necessarily hurt him, but he wonders at the inefficiency and the wasted time. What else could the BLM employee have accomplished in the time it took to draft a report and oversee the project?

Look at a map of New Mexico and you will see a checkerboard of ownership. Public and private land bump against one another in odd patterns with irregular borders. Ranching in arid New Mexico takes a lot of acres and a lot of New Mexico land (42%) is owned by the government, thus grazing on public land is not a rarity. Ranchers are allowed to graze in Wilderness Study Areas and wilderness designations and they do so for little monetary cost. Allowance does not mean free reign and the little monetary cost has hidden charges in the way of time and inconvenience. Grazing on federal lands comes with heavy oversight and a reservoir of rules. On one hand, I am pleased the BLM is overseeing what happens on our federal lands. On the other, twenty-four people need to know about repairing a broken levee? And parking on visquine is necessary?

People for Preservation of Our Western Heritage reports that at a City of Las Cruces meeting, Mr. Ed Roberson, Las Cruces BLM District Manager at the time, publicly stated “The ranchers are afraid of being ‘eaten’ one bite at a time.” So why does it matter if ranchers like Mobley have to wait five months to make repairs? If they decide the hassle of wilderness and wilderness area restrictions are too much and quit ranching? The answer: land. Ranchers who utilize federal lands own vast sections of land beside the areas we want to protect. The view sheds are open because ranching happens on those lands. If the ranchers quit ranching because of restrictions, they will sell their land. Chances are good it will not be sold to another rancher, but to a developer. So instead of seeing a few cows, we can peep in people’s windows and look at rooflines.

Mobley grazes in a Wilderness Study Area, an area not yet wilderness. He is part of People for Preservation of Our Western Heritage who proposes new designations (Rangeland Preservation Areas and Special Preservation Areas) for sections of the Sierra de Las Uvas, Organ, Doña Ana, Robledo and Potrillo Mountains. They propose the new designations, not because they are against wilderness, but because they are for ranching. They want to continue ranching and wilderness looks like a threat, a romantic threat, a popular threat. In the time I spent with Mobley, he talked of his love for the Valle Vidal, of the time he spent in the Gila. This is not a man who hates wilderness, who abhors conservation. He is a man who thinks there are multiple ways to be right and more than one way to get things done.

For two years as a newly wed, Mobley took care of his father-in-law’s ranch. As the sole employee and caretaker, he learned to do things he thought were impossible. When you are alone on a ranch, it does not matter if it takes four people to get a task accomplished—what matters is that it needs done, and it needs done now. Mobley learned to rely on himself, to look at a situation and not think “impossible,” but to think “how?” When talks between the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and the ranchers failed, a failure Mobley attributes to both sides of the debate, Mobley despaired. What now? Would the ranchers be the isolated, silenced minority? His life training learned long ago on a remote ranch resurfaced, and a grandson’s school report provided another option.

So, yes, I would mourn the loss of a view shed if ranchers quit ranching, but more than that I would mourn the loss of people like Mobley, people who know there is more than one way to get a thing done.

Home, home on the holistic range
The Oregon cowboy must change his ways to keep his place on the high desert landscape

Editorial - The Oregonian

Last week's sage-scented verdict from a federal appeals court sent us two sharp reminders:

Judicial decisions are awfully blunt tools with which to craft environmental policy.

The most endangered species in Oregon may be the cowboy.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just ordered the federal Bureau of Land Management to take a look -- again -- at how it's managing more than 4 million acres in eastern Oregon.

The court's message was clear: The BLM better bear in mind the rising wilderness values of our state's shrub-steppe range.

The decision marked one more victory for high-desert environmentalists in their battle to make Uncle Sam a better steward of Oregon's dry side. It sent, too, a clear signal to Oregon cattlemen: Get smarter, or get ready to get off the public range.

Last week's decision came hard on the hoofs of a 2000 ruling in which the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to uphold much tighter regulation of grazing on public lands -- a decision that sent shivers through nearly 1,500 ranchers who hold grazing leases on 13 million acres of BLM land in Oregon.

A century ago, huge herds of cattle and vast flocks of sheep roamed central and eastern Oregon, where both plants and soil are acutely fragile. The result was extensive environmental degradation, especially in riparian zones, that took a huge toll on everything from sage grouse to salmon.

More recently, with sheep all but eliminated and cattle greatly reduced, much work is being done to better manage desert livestock. Some Oregon cattlemen are trying a practice they call "holistic range management." Heeding the mantra of an African rancher named Allan Savory, they insist that wandering herds actually enhance rather than degrade native grasslands.

Environmentalists bark back that the arid West, unlike Africa's great savanna, never was home to huge native herds. Thus, its ecosystem is much more brittle.

As the debate rages, public sentiment -- even among lovers of steak -- seems already to have shifted. Oregonians long were willing to let public lands here be managed for little more than livestock and mining. More recently, more and more people are advocating for those lands as a recreational resource, as habitat for fish and wildlife -- even as a reservoir of carbon sequestration. (We knew we'd eventually find a role for all those juniper flats.)

In the past 100 years, Oregon has seen a dramatic reduction in its number of cattle, and the cowboys who herd them. Unless Oregon cattlemen move quickly, and in concert, to carve out for themselves a more sustainable role in the sage, that decline will continue. Running fewer cattle on public range, moving them more often, securely fencing them out of streambeds, seems like a good place to start.

Willie Nelson once warned mamas not to let their babies grow up to be cowboys. Pretty soon, Oregon will be warning its cowboys not to grow up to be baristas.

'Storn Over Rangeland' still rages 17 years later

RENO, Nev. - It took 17 years for the late rancher Wayne Hage to win a groundbreaking lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service in a long-running dispute over property rights, water rights and grazing on federal land.

A federal judge finally ruled last month that the government had engaged in an unconstitutional “taking” of Hage’s water rights and awarded more than $4 million to Hage’s estate. But his family and supporters - while relishing the victory - fear the fight is far from won.

“What happened to us in the 1980s and 1990s is now happening across the West, so it is going to be vitally important for Western ranchers to understand what they own and how to defend it, “said Ramona Morrison, one of Hage’s daughters and a member of the Nevada State Agriculture Board who was a freshman in high school when the dispute began.

“We could have a classic case here in some sense of laws working at cross purposes,” said Ed Monnig, U.S. Forest Service supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyable National Forest where Hage once grazed his cattle in central Nevada.

Federal Claims Court Judge Loren A. Smith, based in Washington D.C., ruled that government restrictions severely reducing water flows to the Hage family’s land “deprived them of the water they needed for irrigation, making the ranch unviable.”

Like judges before him, Smith said the cancellation of Hage’s grazing permit as a result of overgrazing and trespassing did not constitute a “taking” prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution because a grazing permit is “a license, not a contract or property interest,” he said.


But he concluded the government committed a taking when the Forest Service - apparently motivated by “hostility” toward Hage - made it impossible for him to maintain irrigation ditches.

“It doesn’t do you a lot of good to own that water if you really, effectively can’t use it,” said Lyman “Ladd” Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service in 1991.

Morrison said the federal agency continually harassed her father, who once was a leader of the Western movement for more local control of public land called the “Sagebrush Rebellion” and who wrote the 1989 book “Storm Over Rangelands: Private Rights in Federal Lands.”

“They had put my family through shear hell with various trespass notices, visits, demands and so forth culminating when they confiscated 100 head of our cattle,” Morrison said. She recalls the day federal agents rounded up the animals.

“They were fully armed. They pointed a gun at my brother when he threw a rock at a dog that belonged to the government. We were darn lucky we didn’t have a Ruby Ridge situation,” she said about a 1992 standoff with U.S. marshals that resulted in three deaths in a shootout at the Idaho home of Randy Weaver.

“This is really a vindication for what were considered radical ideas in 1989 when dad wrote his book,” she said, adding she wished her parents had lived to enjoy the victory.

Her mother, Jean Hage, died in 1996. Wayne Hage remarried ex-U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, before he died in June 2006 and she died four months later in a car accident.

Hage purchased the ranch north of Tonopah in 1978 and began feuding with the Forest Service almost immediately.

At issue, according to Smith’s ruling, is that the Forest Service prohibited the Hages from using motorized equipment to clear irrigation ditches on national forest land that brought water to the ranch.

“It cannot be seriously argued that the work normally done by caterpillars and back hoes could be accomplished with hand tools over thousands of acres. With hand tools the task would have taken years or decades and required hundreds of workers,” the judge wrote.

The ditches were regulated under the 1866 Ditch Act, which was enacted one year after the Pine Creek Ranch was established - two years after President Lincoln admitted Nevada as a state in 1864.

“The 1866 ditch laws and other laws were really part of that free enterprise period in American history where Congress was trying to encourage Western settlement and protect private property rights of Western settlers,” said Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association based in Battle Ground, Wash.

“Nobody would go back to somebody who homesteaded a parcel of land in the 1870s and try to take that land away from them today. And as a result of this case I think all ranchers with grazing permits have solidified their private property rights on federal lands,” he said.

“He is a Western hero in my mind,” Cushman said of Hage.

Monnig said it’s more complicated than simply upholding a 142-year-old law because the Ditch Act must be balanced against other laws that have since been passed.

For example, he said, Congress enacted the 1964 Wilderness Act “recognizing we have this potential to basically modify and adapt every square inch on the face of the earth.”

“They said we want to set some land aside untrammeled by man as wilderness areas — some areas where earth will be untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor and does not remain,” Monnig said.

Justice Department lawyers say they haven’t decided whether to appeal, but Bedford expects they will.

John Echeverria, a lawyer at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Environmental Law and Policy Institute who had filed friend-of-the-court briefs backing the government’s position, expects the ruling will be overturned.

“Over the last decade there has been a spate of litigation over this basic issue and the litigation has pretty generally gone against the ranchers, in favor of the public,” Echeverria said.

“The plaintiffs and their allies have put out lot of materials saying it is a great victory for public land grazers,” he said. “But while this decision is troubling and wrong and will almost certainly be reversed on appeal, it is a relatively narrow decision.”

Though the judge said Hage “offered ample evidence that the Forest Service had engaged in harassment ... enough to suggest that the implementation of the hand tools requirement was based solely on hostility to plaintiffs,” Echeverria said Hage himself is to blame.

The Forest Service routinely requires ranchers to apply for a special use permit to use machinery on national forest land, he said.

“After Hage wrote his book, he wrote a letter to the Forest Service that said ‘I own this land. You can’t tell me what to do,”‘ he said.

Echeverria said the charge that Hage was limited to using hand tools is incorrect.

“It was a self-imposed restriction because Wayne Hage refused to seek a permit based on the theory that the Forest Service had no business managing his land. It was a self-inflicted wound.”

Morrison said she’s proud that her father has been vindicated, but she doesn’t expect to receive payment for damages anytime soon because of the possibility of appeals. Regardless, the judgment can never make up for the hardship her family endured for years, she said.

“No amount of money could ever pay for what we went through,” she said.

Wilderness debate clarification

by Jerry Schickedanz

I have been following the "wilderness debate" of HR 6300, Doña Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Range Land Preservation Act of 2008 with interest and dismay as "concerned citizens and special interest groups" continue to use alarmist tactics to divert citizens from the basic intent of the proposed legislation. These groups proclaim a wholesale sell-off of BLM land and they ignore the basic intent of the proposed legislation of land protection and access in Doña Ana County. I will only address these two issues of the many distorted ones surrounding the concern for protected open space and development around Las Cruces.

The claim of an overnight fire sale of 60,000 acres of BLM land doesn't hold much water. There were some 65,000 acres identified for disposal in 1993 by BLM in their Mimbres Resource Management Plan. Since that time, less than 5,000 acres have been sold or exchanged. One of BLM's founding objectives was disposal of lands under their jurisdiction. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that BLM is identifying land for disposal and has done so for many years. Current maps of the land identified for disposal in 1993 are available in the BLM office.

Previously, lands that have been sold, traded or exchanged in Doña Ana County have been done so without a lot of public input. When an exchange, sale or trade with another agency or private entity is in negotiation, it is almost completed before the public gets a chance for input and is on a completion course. HR 6300 provides for a local advisory board made up of local representatives to advise the secretary of Interior annually on prioritizing land for disposal under the land use planning process and make recommendations to the BLM state director with respect to the disposal. It also provides for public input on the priorities for disposal of public land. I would think this would be preferable to the current negotiations that are not widely announced until they are a done deal.

There is also an outcry about the release of lands by HR 6300 that are currently under management by the BLM's Wilderness Study Area designation (WSA). Yes, HR 6300 would release these lands from WSA status, but the majority of these lands would come under protection of the proposed Rangeland Preservation Areas (RPA) or Special Preservation Areas (SPA). These designations would provide for federal withdrawal from 1) "all forms of entry, appropriation or disposal under the public land laws," 2) "location, entry and patent under the mining laws" and 3) "operation of the mineral leasing, mineral materials and geothermal leasing laws". The proposed bill would also allow the secretary to manage RPAs and SPAs to conserve, protect and improve the resources including grazing and wildlife habitat and to maintain and preserve the open space within these lands. Currently, these lands have little management input to improve them for wildlife, grazing or recreation. The proposed withdrawals are similar to what was passed by Congress in 2006 that provide adequate protection for the Valle Vidal area in northern New Mexico from housing development, mineral, and oil and gas development while still allowing access for those beautiful and valuable natural resources.

I submit that if concerned citizens with open minds would read closely what is in HR 6300, they would find that the bill will provide for an orderly and agreed upon disposal of federal land and adequate protection for lands that are important for open space in Doña Ana County. The bill will allow access for those who want to experience, use and recreate in these open spaces.

Jerry G. Schickedanz is dean emeritus for the College of Agriculture and Home Economics, New Mexico State University

Court: Ore. land plan should consider wilderness

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal appeals judges have told the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to take another look at its plans for about 4.5 million acres in Eastern Oregon — and to consider wilderness values when it does.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday the bureau's plans for the area are too narrow.

The judges say the bureau should include in its management plans areas where grass, sagebrush and juniper are reclaiming unused roads.

And it said the bureau should manage lands with an eye toward preserving their wilderness characteristics — even if they haven't been designated as wilderness areas.

As a result, the appeals court says, the agency must redo a management plan in the works since 1995. That plan, in turn, was a response to a law passed in 1976 that required federal agencies to make plans for the lands under their control.

The suit was brought in 2003 by the Oregon Natural Desert Association. It involves land in three counties, Malheur, Grant and Harney, where the bureau leases extensive tracts of grazing land to ranchers.

The environmental group said the bureau in 1980 compiled an inventory of lands in the area with potential to be declared formally as wilderness areas.

But by the late 1990s, the group said, another 1.3 million acres had become eligible for consideration for wilderness because what once were roads turned into little-used ways, small reservoirs had dried up and land infested by invasive species had been returned to native vegetation.

The bureau, the court said, insisted that its wilderness study ended in 1980 and didn't need to be reopened. A trial judge agreed.

But, the appeals court said, "Wilderness characteristics are not simply a checklist" to be used for a one-time inventory.

Instead, the court said, the bureau is obligated continuously to manage land with wilderness characteristics. It said that even if the Congress hadn't designated such land as wilderness, the bureau could protect it against damaging uses such as mining, grazing and off-road vehicle use.

A spokesman for the bureau, Michael Campbell, said it had not decided whether to appeal.

He said land in Eastern Oregon doesn't change quickly, but, "That said, we're always willing to look at new information."

Representatives of the Oregon Natural Desert Association did not immediately return phone calls.

BLM asks for public comment regarding grazing on Ore. monument

The Bureau of Land Management is asking for public comment regarding the future of cattle ranching in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument.

A BLM assessment issued Thursday finds the current level of grazing does not adequately protect the wildlife and plants it was designed to guard when President Clinton designated it a national monument in 2000. However, whether open grazing will be completely eliminated from the monument, considered one of the most biologically diverse places in the world, is open to public comment for the next 30 days.

Monument Assistant Manager Howard Hunter says a decision will be made next year on whether cattle can stay. Meanwhile, a bill is pending in Congress that would pay ranchers with money raised by conservation groups to turn back their grazing leases.

"The cattle have been on that monument, or on that piece of land, for 150 years, and the cattle have been so detrimental to it that Clinton made it a national monument because of all the special plants and the community that has grown up there. And in my opinion, the cattle have probably enhanced that," says Rancher Bruce Buckmaster.

"The monument proclamation says retire the allotments. It's been clear for several years that the BLM doesn't intend to do that, it's been clear that the BLM has said, 'Oh we can change a little here, change a little there, and everything will be fine'. Well, that's illegal," says Dave Willis of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council.

To comment on the BLM's assessment of the effects of grazing visit this link.

Landowners wonder about future for bombing range

By Gabriel Monte: CNJ Staff Writer

MELROSE — A State Land Office official said Wednesday the future is uncertain for more than 20,000 acres of state land used for ranching and farming near the Melrose Bombing Range.

Larry Kehoe told farmers and ranchers who lease state lands they should continue their operations until the Air Force determines whether more land is needed to expand the range.

“Until they finish their due process we won’t know what they (Air Force officials) want,” Kehoe said. “Nothing’s going to change until we hear something from the Air Force.”

Rancher Chris Barnard said the meeting at Melrose School did little to shed light on his business' future. He said he leases about half the land he uses for ranching from the state.

“It’s hard to make a future if you don’t know what the future holds,” he said.

Kehoe said the meeting was designed to start a dialogue as the Air Force and the Department of Finance develop an action plan to purchase land now leased to ranchers.

The Air Force has a year to decide if it will accept the land offered by Gov. Bill Richardson, according to a memorandum of understanding that took effect in June.

Kehoe said the governor appropriated $5 million from the state Legislature to purchase between 17,000 and 20,300 acres of state trust land for Cannon Air Force Base.

Base officials said the Air Force has not agreed to accept any land until it determines whether it’s needed.

Lt. Col. Toby Corey, 27th Special Operations Support Squadron commander, said base officials are working on a comprehensive plan to determine how the bombing range will be used to train personnel for missions.

The plan should be completed by the fall, according to Capt. Justin Swick, 27th Special Operations Wing judge advocate chief of civil law.

BLM finds grazing harmful to protected monument

Cattle grazing on the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument harms the flora and fauna the monument was created to protect, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has concluded.

In a long-awaited assessment expected to be released today, the agency found that cattle grazing on the monument, created by presidential proclamation in 2000 to protect its rich biodiversity, does not meet the proclamation's intent, said Howard Hunter, the monument's assistant manager.

"We have determined the grazing practices are not compatible with the proclamation, meaning we are not adequately protecting the tangible and intangible items in the monument," he said.

The assessment's release kicks off a 30-day public comment period.

The 52,947-acre monument in the BLM's Medford District was established to protect what scientists say is one of the most biologically diverse places in North America. For instance, the monument contains more than 100 species of butterflies.

However, the area has been used by local ranchers for more than a century for cattle grazing when the lower elevation pastures dry up each summer.

Located where the Cascade, Siskiyou and Klamath mountain ranges intersect, the monument is located a dozen miles east of Ashland. Soda Mountain is its geographic center.

The proclamation by President Bill Clinton directed the BLM to study the impacts of livestock on the "objects of biological interest in the monument with specific attention to sustaining the natural ecosystem dynamics." Should grazing be found incompatible with that goal, then the grazing allotments within the monument shall be retired, it stated.

Eleven ranchers currently hold grazing leases for 2,714 animal unit months on nine grazing allotments within the monument.

An AUM represents the amount of forage required to feed one mature 1,000-pound cow and her calf for one month.

Findings in the BLM's rangeland health assessment included increased noxious weeds and non-native perennial grass, indicating ecosystem health problems where moderate to severe livestock grazing occurred. It also found the rate of recovery in sensitive streams and wetlands where grazing occurred was slower than in areas not grazed.

"The minimum standard for being compatible was to meet the rangeland health standards — we are not at this time," Hunter concluded.

Beginning today, the BLM's grazing determination will be available at www.blm.gov/or/districts/medford/index.php

Following the public comment period, an environmental assessment will be completed in about six months, followed by a decision sometime next winter, he said.

"The decision will be to modify or retire the allotments in the monument," Hunter said. "They will have to be changed. We are not meeting the intent of the proclamation or the BLM's rangeland health standards."

The BLM's determination that cattle grazing harms the monument mirrors a study by environmental groups released last year.

The agency's conclusion didn't surprise Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, which wants the cattle off the monument and federal wilderness designation for it. The proclamation language leaves the agency with no wiggle room if grazing is determined to be incompatible with the goals, he said.

"It's a national monument — not a national cow pasture," he said.

But rancher Bob Miller of Hornbrook, Calif., whose family has a historic grazing lease on the monument, believes the BLM has some discretion in its grazing decision.

"That isn't a killing factor yet," he said of the agency's conclusion regarding cattle grazing on the monument.

Meanwhile, ranchers and conservationists have been working together to create an arrangement that would allow conservationists to pay the ranchers to retire their grazing leases. The fate of the agreement depends on a Senate bill which would make it possible for conservation groups to pay ranchers to retire their leases. The buyout would include no funding from Uncle Sam.

"We want this bill to pass," Willis said. "All things considered, it's the best resolution to this situation."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

Pearce's conservation bill: What's not to like?

By Jim Scarantino

The Doña Ana County Wilderness Coalition deserves congratulations for Rep. Steve Pearce’s proposed legislation to protect more than 300,000 acres of federal land in Doña Ana County. By kick-starting the debate on how to preserve the landscape surrounding a booming Las Cruces, the wilderness coalition succeeded in prompting a conservative Republican congressman to introduce the first major land conservation legislation for southern New Mexico in nearly 30 years. Moreover, his legislation originated among constituencies acting out of stereotype in joining the call to permanently protect the rugged beauty of the area.

I am the former chairman of the Coalition for New Mexico Wilderness. I was also a board member and executive director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. I helped lead the effort to win protection for the Ojito Wilderness in Sandoval County. That legislation passed in 2005. It was the first citizen-initiated wilderness legislation for New Mexico in almost two decades.

In a blog I kept a couple years ago, I expressed concern about the Doña Ana wilderness campaign led by the Wilderness Alliance. There’s no point in rehashing what I think went wrong from the campaign’s very first steps. What’s done is done, and wilderness activists simply have to deal with the political situation they face today.

Tom Cooper, co-chairman of People For Preserving Our Western Heritage, saw my blog entries and contacted me. Though Tom is regularly described in news reports as a rancher, he is more accurately considered a businessman. He has run a successful accounting business in Doña Ana County for decades. He owns two car dealerships. And he owns ranches, including one in Doña Ana County.

I had met Tom when working for the Wilderness Alliance in 2003 on issues related to Otero Mesa. Tom has a ranch on the western end of those grasslands. Our conversations back then could not be described as friendly. Respectful, yes. Friendly, no.

But because we had always treated each other honestly, Tom felt he could reach out to me. He told me of the frustrations and fear the ranching community was feeling, and how much the agricultural community in general distrusted the Wilderness Alliance because of the people who controlled its board of directors. That operative fact is a big problem in this controversy. I will return to that issue later.

Tom insisted his group wanted rural Doña Ana County kept the way it is, but could not live under the Wilderness Act because of the adverse impact on their operations, law enforcement, water resources and flood control.

The birth of the legislation

I gave him two pieces of free advice: One, don’t give up. You and the members of your group are well respected. You have deep roots in your community. Don’t let yourselves feel helpless. And, two, if you really mean what you say about wanting to protect Doña Ana County for future generations, don’t just be obstructionist. Be constructive. Propose and advocate for your own alternative solution.

That’s just what they did. Pearce’s proposed legislation, H.R. 6300, is the brainchild of Tom’s group.

To say the least, Tom’s group exceeded all expectations. The wilderness coalition, for its part, has enjoyed the services of several full-time employees and a large organizing and advertising budget. People For Preserving Our Western Heritage has relied solely on volunteers who have other full-time jobs. No outside foundations have been sending them five-figure donations to launch a media and lobbying campaign.

The group has assembled a coalition more than three times as large as what the wilderness professionals accomplished. Tom’s group has peeled away governments and organizations that initially supported wilderness. The chambers of commerce of Las Cruces and Hatch are behind them. Past presidents of New Mexico State University support their proposal, along with respected range-management professionals, the National Association of Retired Border Patrol Agents, the sheriff and posse of Doña Ana County, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and the Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of America.

There is more support for the proposal drafted by this committed group of volunteers than New Mexico has seen for any other conservation initiative in a generation, with the possible exception of the professionally run campaign to protect Valle Vidal from energy development.

The proposal from People For Preserving Our Western Heritage has drawn so much support so easily because it has a vision that can work. Once you tune out the rhetoric and partisan bickering and actually read Pearce’s bill, as far as preserving Doña Ana County’s open spaces, there’s really not much to dislike. Nor are his land-disposal provisions as bad as opponents argue. I will address the specific merits of his legislation in my next column.

Scarantino has been recognized as one of the country’s best political columnists by the American Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. His work has been published in more than 50 newspapers. You can contact him at jrscarantino@yahoo.com.

People For Preservation of Our Western Heritage Catches Praise

By Rebecca Powell, 7-03-08

Part of an ongoing series about the Doña Ana County Wilderness Debate. For more on the debate and the proposals, see A Biased Observer of the Doña Ana County Wilderness Debate, For Some, Wilderness is Simple, Pearce Submits People’s Proposal to the House, and More Than a Yes or No to Wilderness.

Jim Scarantino, a respected journalist and former executive director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, praises the efforts of People for the Preservation of Our Western Heritage on Heath Haussamen’s NM Politics site. He highlights the group’s commitment and their home-grown roots.

The ranchers I know are an independent lot. They do not form groups, organize, or launch campaigns. They like open spaces, devoid of people. Informing the public on what it takes to ranch or its importance is not on an activity they relish or perform with any regularity. That a group of ranchers with ties to the local business community managed to overcome their natural inclinations to broadcast their message and form a large coalition of supporters may herald a new day in land conservation.

A commenter here said the people of Dona Ana County do not have the right to dictate what happens to the land surrounding their community. He said federal land belongs to us all. It is a romantic, compelling notion that has basis in law and fact. But, there is an aspect about land that goes beyond law, beyond notions.

The land you have walked, the land you have watched change over years and seasons belongs to you in an elemental way. People thousands of miles from Las Cruces may have a stake in these lands, but it is not an emotional stake. They have not mourned droughts, fires or floods. They have not watched the wildflowers bloom at the base of the Organs.

HR 6300 was not born in an office in Washington D.C. or Denver, Colorado. It was born from the minds and hearts of those who have walked the land and worked the land. They have an emotional and financial stake in this debate. Some will claim that makes them biased, purely self-interested, and I would reply, of course—we all are.

We live here, We play here. The Organs, Robledos and Dona Anas mark the boundaries of what we consider “here.” We all have a self-interest in their future. To assert that those for wilderness designation have less of a self-interest because they do not benefit financially from the lands is to say realtors, developers, business owners, and wilderness activists do not profit from the existence of the mountain ranges. It is to say that the surroundings of Las Cruces do not influence anyone’s decision to move here, that no one but the ranchers has a job predicated on their existence.

It is our self-interest that makes this a debate worth having.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Protect N.M. Land and Its Many Uses

By Tom Cooper And Jodi Denning
People For Preserving Our Western Heritage

LAS CRUCES — The Wilderness Act of 1964 provides the framework for the use and management of designated wilderness areas. Wilderness is the most restrictive land use designation available, and one of its most contested aspects is access. Motorized vehicles and even mountain bikes and motorized wheelchairs are prohibited.

The restricted access not only affects the public, but significantly impacts law enforcement, search and rescue and firefighting activities. Wilderness areas close to the border created havens for drug trafficking and other illegal activity; concerns for citizen safety resulted in closure of those areas to the public.

Wilderness also severely limits proactive conservation and stewardship measures for the land and its wildlife. Recreation, outdoor sports and hunting are impacted, and unrealistic burdens are placed on existing ranching operations.

Wilderness designation results in numerous impacts to every individual and organization that utilizes federal land. The designation is one way to “protect” wild areas, but not the only way, as New Mexico Wilderness Alliance would have the public believe.

Our group, People for Preserving Our Western Heritage, developed an alternative proposal to protect these areas that became the basis for HR 6300.

Our objective was to provide a meaningful balance among environmental protection, water resource management, law enforcement, national security, conservation, community development, recreation and respect for private property rights.

The result is the Doña Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space And Rangeland Preservation Act of 2008, introduced by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. The People's Proposal would protect 302,000 acres by creating two Special Preservation Areas and four Rangeland Preservation Areas.

These lands could never be sold or exchanged and will be permanently withdrawn from the mining and mineral leasing laws — protection legislatively identical to wilderness designation.

This proposal differs from wilderness designation in that each area would be managed to protect its unique resources. Open space would be preserved and established, and historic uses of the land such as ranching, recreation and hunting would be accommodated.

The lands would be managed in a manner that protects and enhances grazing, recreation, wildlife management and scenic values under multiple-use, while conserving open space and unique resources.

The use of motorized vehicles will be allowed only on designated roads and trails. There would be exceptions as needed for administrative purposes, homeland security, law enforcement, emergency response, construction and maintenance of authorized rainfall runoff management systems or authorized rangeland improvements.
The act incorporates provisions from legislation drafted in 2005 by U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici for a land exchange for NMSU, and for the disposal of federal land identified in the Bureau of Land Management's 1993 plan.

The “People's Proposal” quickly earned significant community support, with a coalition of more than 700 businesses and organizations along with numerous professional endorsements. The concept of tailoring legislation to meet each area's specific needs, addressing identified threats and preserving beneficial historic use has been viewed with great enthusiasm.

The proposal is receiving attention throughout the West, where the never-ending flow of wilderness proposals has created public outcry and legislative logjams. We can protect our land, our natural resources and our open space without federal wilderness designations. This proposal protects not only the land itself, but also the access to the land and the beneficial stewardship and use of the land.

For a copy of the act and more information, visit www.PeopleForWesternHeritage.com.

Tom Cooper is chairman, and Jodi Denning is communications director, of People For Preserving Our Western Heritage.

PEARCE INTRODUCES LAND PROTECTION MEASURE

Plan based on community input, would result in a balanced approach

For Immediate Release
June 27, 2008
Contact: Brian Phillips
202.225.4759, brian,phillips@mail.house.gov

Washington - Congressman Steve Pearce, on June 18, 2008 introduced legislation to create special designations for land that balance open space preservation with other needs of the surrounding community. The Dona Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space And Rangeland Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 6300) would create four Rangeland Preservation Areas and two Special Preservation Areas that permanently protect open space and ensure appropriate access for public safety and other purposes.

"The issues are complex, and we have worked diligently to find a middle ground that is acceptable on all sides of the issue," said Pearce, a former small businessman. Over 700 businesses and organizations have formed a Coalition supporting this proposal. We believe it offers a compromise that would greatly benefit southern New Mexico and has great potential across the western states struggling with these issues for providing appropriate protection without creating unnecessary hardships on surrounding communities."

The debate over public lands legislation has helped to raise local citizens awareness of the importance of preserving open space and providing protection for our natural resources. Congressman Pearce has closely followed the debate that has surfaced with the competing proposals.

While many question the qualification of the lands in Dona Ana County, New Mexico under the standards established by the Wilderness Act of 1964, it is clear the community stands in solid agreement that these areas are worthy of protection from encroaching development as well as from mining and mineral leasing. The community has expressed concerns about the impact of Wilderness access restrictions on law enforcement, search and rescue operations, fire fighting, and flood control projects, as well as access for sportsmen, hunters, horseback riders and other recreationalists. The development community raised concerns about impacts on community growth. The ranching community raised concerns about their economic viability when faced with impacts from management and administration practices typically imposed within Wilderness areas.

Concerns expressed by Border Patrol organizations about impacts to Homeland Security operations raise serious issues that impact every citizen. Richard Hayes, retired Chief of Air Operations for the Border Patrol, expressed his concerns by stating "The current effort to create Wilderness along the border in Dona Ana County and ultimately the expansion of such activities along the extended border is dangerous and ill conceived."

Specifically, the legislation will allow appropriate access for recreational use of the land, such as hunting, camping, and bicycling, as well as unrestricted access for law enforcement and public safety officials. It also will benefit the economies of surrounding communities by allowing a local advisory board to participate in and provide input into the existing land disposal process managed by the Bureau of Land Management. A portion of the proceeds from sale of federal lands would be directed back into the local community. It should be noted that the Act deals only with disposal lands already identified by BLM in its 1993 Mimbres Area Resource Management Plan. The Act does not identify additional lands for disposal, and sets no timetable for disposals. Disposals will be based on the needs of the community, with input from a seven-member advisory committee consisting of a representative from the BLM, Dona Ana County, City of Las Cruces, conservationists, Elephant Butte Irrigation District, ranching, and the business community.

The legislation will provide protection and preservation of the federal lands with a model which tailors the level of protection and access based on the specific requirements for the areas and the needs of the community. The existing temporary Wilderness Study Areas can be released because appropriate protection measures will be in place.

Congressman Pearces legislation is an innovative approach blending sensible and appropriate levels of protection for our natural resources, balanced with protection of property rights, appropriate levels of access for the public and law enforcement, and continued beneficial use of these areas.

-30-

Additional Reference material:

A 2004 US General Accounting Office (GAO) Report titled "Border Security - Agencies Need to Better Coordinate Their Strategies and Operations on Federal Lands", states: "Congress has designated areas within some federal lands as wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964 and subsequent legislation, while the Fish and Wildlife Service has designated certain areas as critical habitat for endangered and threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Federal law enforcement officers told us that these designations can hinder their efforts. For example, motorized vehicles must generally remain on designated roads in wilderness areas, and the Wilderness Act generally prohibits construction of permanent structures such as communications towers in wilderness areas."

Forest may examine cattle fence in detail
Forest Service says more analysis might be needed for fence, corrals in pronghorn path.

Bridger-Teton National Forest officials say they will likely take a closer look at the environmental consequences of building fences and a corral proposed at a grazing allotment in the Gros Ventre River drainage.

Jackson District Ranger Dale Deiter said Monday he will consider a more stringent analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act for proposal to construct a corral and two sections of fence in the pronghorn migration corridor in the Gros Ventre. Officials had previously recommended a “categorical exclusion,” a level of analysis reserved for activities that do not have a significant effect on the environment.

Deiter said the fences and the corral would likely necessitate an “environmental assessment,” a more in-depth look at the possible environmental consequences. Deiter stopped short of committing to such a study.

Deiter called grazing on the Upper Gros Ventre a “valid use.”

“It’s really just about the management we are going to employ on the land,” he said. Protecting the pronghorn migration corridor and keeping cattle on the allotment are two goals for the Forest Service, he said.

“What we’re trying to deal with is distribution on the allotment.”

The proposal comes after 550 cow-calf pairs cattle owned by ranchers Shane Christian, of Pavillion, and Jack and Amy Robinson of Jackson, repeatedly wandered off the Upper Gros Ventre allotment last summer and onto the 178,000-acre Bacon-Fish reserve. Conservation groups purchased the Bacon-Fish allotment in January 2007 to provide additional grazing opportunities for big game such as elk, and to provide options for managing large carnivores. Part of the 178,000 acres is a forage reserve where infrequent grazing could be allowed.

One new extension would link to an existing fence near Soda Creek, part of which was recently removed by conservation groups to benefit wildlife. The other, located northwest of Lake Creek, is new and would intersect a pronghorn migration corridor from the Upper Green River Valley to Grand Teton National Park.

The corral, which has already been constructed, is located near Slate Creek. The corral is necessary as a drop-off point because the upper portion of the Gros Ventre Road isn’t passable by tractor trailers hauling cattle, according to Forest Service officials and the ranchers.

Environmentalists have said the fencing and the corral could impede wildlife movement.

Conservation groups have also suggested that trailing the cattle from Slate Creek to the allotment could damage resources. Deiter agreed the land between the corral and the allotment is crucial winter range.

“I haven’t seen anything that suggests we are having impacts trailing to the allotment,” he said. “I think, for a lot of reasons, Slate Creek would be the best option” for the corral.

Gros Ventre rancher Glenn Taylor, who spoke at a meeting Monday, agreed.

“You have to have a site where you can deal with those trucks, and that’s the best site,” he said.

Greater Yellowstone Coalition representative Lloyd Dorsey urged a more comprehensive look at the fencing and the corrals.

“Isn’t the Forest Service concerned about foreclosing on options that could be looked at in a more comprehensive analysis?” he asked Deiter. “I would hope [Bridger-Teton] moves slowly when they make decisions up there that can impact public resources.”

Louise Lasley, public lands director with the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said that the Forest Service should take a better look at how unloading cattle at the corral in the spring coincides with the pronghorn migration near the corral “right at a critical bottleneck.”

When Kniffy Hamilton, forest supervisor with Bridger-Teton, asked about a removable fence on one part of the corral, Taylor objected.

“I would like to see that proposal as labor friendly as possible,” he said. “Why burden these fellas with more work than they need to do? These people aren’t trust babies; they’re trying to make a dollar out of this.”

Jack Robinson agreed. “I don’t want to be building this and taking it down every year,” he said.

Robinson also said he doesn’t expect the cattle to figure out how to stay on the Upper Gros Ventre allotment on their own.

Deiter said that the fencing might not be necessary if people would be more tolerant about cattle leaving the allotment.

After the meeting, another conservationist took issue with Deiter’s suggestion that the public tolerate some leakage of cattle onto Bacon-Fish reserve.

“The logic that permittees should somehow be exempt from their contractual obligations, that kind of attitude just doesn’t cut it with me at all,” said Jonathan Ratner, Western Watersheds Project Wyoming office director. “You need to control your livestock.”

Ratner said he’s seen tractor trailer trucks negotiate Gros Ventre road numerous times and said the corral and an associated 12-acre holding pasture belongs on private land. Further, he said calling the proposed fences “wildlife friendly” is a misnomer.

“There is no such thing as wildlife friendly fences,” he said. “All fences impact wildlife.”

Ratner also took issue with the fact that taxpayers, not the cattle owners, would pay for the fencing and corral.

“For some reason, in the livestock industry, the players have this sense of entitlement that this is just their do,” he said.

U.S. Forest Service cuts grazing on National Grasslands

...This year, Forest Service district ranger Ron Jablonski, who manages the Medora district in southwestern North Dakota, decided the drought had significantly affected grass growth in the district. He decided grazing needed to be cut 30 percent across the board in National Grasslands in Slope and Billings counties.

Jerry Lambourn, a cow-calf operator 18 miles north of Rhame, said he was “surprised” when the Little Missouri Grazing Association received a fax telling them about the 30 percent cuts.

His federal grassland pastures are in a region that received good moisture from the spring snowstorm in South Dakota.

In fact, his pastures had received “just short of 5 inches” and were green when he attended the annual meeting at the grazing association.

The fax arrived at the meeting during a break when no one was in the office. The ranchers returned and found the fax. “I was surprised because we have had a lot of moisture this spring,” Lambourn said.

That region of the southwest has been out of the extreme drought category and is currently rated in the abnormally dry category by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Pope said ranchers have always taken steps to manage the drought conditions and have been able to work with the U.S. Forest Service in the past.

He said there were 109 permittees (ranchers) in the association and 7,000 animal units. “Livestock producers were upset by the cuts because they weren't individualized

Pope thought the timing of the fax was unusual because U.S. Forest Service personnel were coming in person that afternoon to give a talk at the meeting anyway.

“The Forest Service did not come out and check the allotments with us before they decided on this 30 percent across-the-board cut,” Pope said. “With 5 inches of rain, it's not needed.”

Shakey Jacobson, a rancher northwest of Amidon who also has pastures in the federal grasslands, said the cool-season grasses were late this spring.

“We're getting good rain now,” Jacobson said. “The wheatgrass is coming up nicely.”

Jacobson, who was the past president of the association, felt the 30 percent across-the-board cut was unjustified. While some pastures in the grazing association were poor, especially on the eastern edge, others were in good condition.

Pastures in parts of the Little Missouri had gotten 4 to 5 inches, and even the drier regions in the northeastern part of the association were finally getting rain. Some regions in the far south had received more than 6 inches this spring.

“Some of the permittees are stocking lighter already, depending on the conditions of the pastures. Others are using other pastures, or taking cows to auction barns,” Pope said. “I just feel our permittees can manage the resources without having to be told they need a mandatory cut.”

Jablonski said the reason for the across-the-board cut was because livestock producers in the association had not all responded back about what they planned to do to deal with the drought this year.

“With little response, I felt compelled to make a decision and that's what I did (make a 30 percent across-the-board cut),” Jablonski said. “If we don't get more moisture, there will be additional cuts.”

He said some of the ways the U.S. Forest determines grazing cutbacks is by using various drought monitors, local forecast, hearing from producers who put in fences about how deep the subsoil moisture goes, monitoring sales at the auction barns, and trying to “keep an eye on the ground conditions.”

“We've just gone through the worst six-month drought in North Dakota,” Jablonski said. “The grass just isn't growing, and it's my responsibility to maintain those grassland resources.”

He said the Forest Service was concerned because there was little fall moisture, no winter snow and only light spring rains this year.

Jack Dahl, range specialist at the U.S. Forest Service, said he was concerned about livestock producers “starting out in a hole.” Most of the grass species have not had adequate production yet. If the grass gets behind this year, it will be even worse next year, he said.

Pope said the federal grasslands has a built-in drought management tool for producers. The tools are there that say what needs to be done in a drought situation.

If the U.S. Forest Service felt there was a drought situation, he said it would have been more appropriate to give more notice to the ranchers. That way they could “find other grass or reduce herds for sales and wouldn't be at the mercy of the markets,” he said.

Pope said the grazing association is in its 69th year, and has not encountered problems with the U.S. Forest Service before. In 2003, the association took a voluntary 25 percent cut and in 1998, it took a 20 percent cut.

Randy Gaebe, a conservationist with the Little Missouri Grazing Association, said the association went out and checked soil conditions in the allotments to see how far down the subsoil moisture was. That ranged from 4 feet to 13 inches in areas checked the week of June 9.

“We have had above average rainfall throughout most of the association,” he said.

Types of grasses that are typical in the Little Missouri are western wheatgrass, crested wheatgrass, prairie junegrass, needle and thread, threadleaf sedge, and big and little blue stem, Gaebe said. The introduced grasses were reseeded in the 30s after farmland was reclaimed.

After hearing from the grazing association that some pastures were in good condition, Forest Service personnel decided that some areas needed to be checked out.

“We're hoping it looks better,” he said.

While cattle were out grazing on the green pastures that are filled with native and introduced grasses last week, Forest Service personnel drove down to view the pastures in person. Little Missouri Grazing Association personnel went with them and showed them the pastures.

Lambourn said his neighbor did hear back from the Forest Service by last week and was told to go ahead with his original grazing plans.

Others were to be notified this week of their decisions.

Up in northwestern North Dakota in the McKenzie District, Gary Petik, U.S. Forest Service range supervisor, said he is working with the McKenzie Grazing Association on voluntary cutbacks.

“It didn't fit our situation for a flat cut,” he said. “We evaluated each pasture on its own merits.”

Most of the region lost six to seven weeks of cool season grass growth due to the lack of moisture. Livestock producers are concerned about a shorter grazing season and some have already made adjustments, he said.

“We adopted the philosophy here of take half, leave half,” Petik said, adding it's an old rule that seems to work well. Voluntary grazing cuts in his region ranged from 15 to 30 percent. One producer volunteered a 40 percent cut.

“We don't try and dictate to them what to do on their individual operations. What we say is when the grass is at 50 percent, rotate the cattle,” he said.

At the Sheyenne National Grasslands in southeastern North Dakota and much of South Dakota, there was no cuts in grazing needed.

At Buffalo Gap national grasslands in South Dakota, livestock producers took a 20 percent cut in grazing. Some took a 40 percent cut depending on the condition of the pasture.

Meanwhile, the national grasslands in Kansas is not allowing any grazing.

At Cimarron National Grassland, the 101,175 acres of land that makes up the unit has only received 2 inches of rain since Jan. 1 and a total of 4 inches since last year.

“None of the grass is growing here,” said Nancy Brewer, rangeland management specialist at Cimarron. “Everything is in the dormant stage. We have no grazing going on.”

Brewer said livestock producers in Cimarron are taking huge hits, cutting their herds or buying expensive feed. Some have been able to move herds to other locations.

She said other states are taking grazing cuts, too.

New supervisor at Lincoln National Forest

Southwestern Regional Forester Corbin Newman announced that Jacqueline "Jacque" Buchanan is now Forest Supervisor of the Lincoln National Forest headquartered in Alamogordo. She had served as deputy forest supervisor and has been acting forest supervisor since the retirement of former Lincoln National Forest Supervisor, S. E. "Lou" Woltering, who retired in April.
Buchanan has more than 20 years experience with several agencies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture including the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, Farmers Home Administration, Farm Service Agency, as well as the U.S. Forest Service.
"Jacque has demonstrated that she works well with people from all walks of life, in addition to her skills in natural resources management," Newman said. "She did a good job as Glenwood District Ranger on the Gila National Forest before moving to the Lincoln National Forest, and she will do a good job as Lincoln Forest Supervisor."
Buchanan has worked closely with numerous collaborative groups throughout New Mexico, is active in the Society of Range Management and served as the President of the New Mexico Section of the Society.
Buchanan said, "Working with the public and maintaining good relations with communities, other agencies, and forest visitors is very important for me. I believe very strongly in our motto of 'Caring for the Land and Serving the People.' As Forest Supervisor of the Lincoln, I will continue to honor this commitment."
Buchanan received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from Penn State University in 1988, after starting her college studies at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales. She has experience in rangeland, recreation and fire management, public affairs as well as her prior administrative positions. During her career, she has worked in North Carolina, Wyoming and New Mexico.

Congress Pushes to Keep Land Untamed
Bills Could Add Millions of Acres Of Wilderness

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2008; A01

INDEX, Wash. -- With little fanfare, Congress has embarked on a push to protect as many as a dozen pristine areas this year in places ranging from the glacier-fed streams of the Wild Sky Wilderness here to West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. By the end of the year, conservation experts predict, this drive could place as much as 2 million acres of unspoiled land under federal control, a total that rivals the wilderness acreage set aside by Congress over the previous five years.

A confluence of factors is driving this wilderness renaissance: the shift in Congress from Republican to Democratic control; environmentalists' decision to take a more pragmatic approach in which they enlist local support for their proposals by making concessions to opposing interests; and some communities' recognition that intact ecosystems can often offer a greater economic payoff than extractive industries.

"It may not seem like it on most issues, but in this one arena Congress is getting things across the goal line," said Mike Matz, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for America's Wilderness. "Nobody gets everything they want, but by coming together, talking with age-old adversaries and seeking common ground, wilderness protection is finding Main Street support and becoming motherhood-and-apple-pie."

Against the backdrop of Bush administration policies that have opened up millions of acres of public land to oil and gas exploration, logging and other commercial uses, environmental advocates and lawmakers argue that it makes sense to cordon off more of the country's most unspoiled places.

The administration has offered more than 40 million acres in the Rockies for oil and gas drilling and other "extractive" uses, according to the Wilderness Society, and it has done the same with 70 million acres in the Alaskan Arctic. In addition, the Forest Service estimates that development eliminates 6,000 acres of the open space every day.

The administration has generally favored expanding wilderness acreage, letting Congress determine which areas should be protected and how. Part of this stems from the fact that nearly all of these bills have broad constituencies, which include local faith, business and hunting groups as well as GOP officeholders. And as Bush approaches the end of his second term, he is eyeing opportunities to leave his mark on the nation's landscape.

In the first wilderness designation this year, the Wild Sky Wilderness became law in May. It set aside more than 106,000 acres of low-elevation, old-growth forest and jagged mountain peaks crisscrossed by streams that feature wild salmon and steelhead runs.

The logging business has largely died out in Index, a town less than two hours from Seattle, and residents see the wilderness as a way to promote the recreational activities that now help drive the local economy.

"In the past 30 years, we've seen this town move into an entirely recreational economy," said Bill Cross, a former city council member in Index who helped lobby for the designation. "I see Wild Sky as an extension of that."

Wilderness areas, which have the strictest level of federal protection, account for just over 107 million acres nationwide -- 4.8 percent of the nation's land mass, roughly half of it in Alaska. Federal law prohibits mechanized transport in wilderness areas, but they are open to such activities as hiking and fishing.

In recent weeks the House has passed six wilderness bills, including Wild Sky, that would protect more than 500,000 acres. The Senate Energy and Resources Committee has approved another four wilderness bills and the panel could pass more, an effort that Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said was aimed at addressing "some pent-up demand for bills that had been in the works for most of the last decade."

Although several factors have spurred the flurry of legislative activity, much of it stems from the fact that former House Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) -- who fiercely opposed designating any new wilderness -- lost his seat in 2006. As many as a dozen bills are expected to pass this year, and another seven have been introduced recently.

Almost all 12 have bipartisan support, and many include concessions to traditional opponents such as loggers and off-road-vehicle riders. But they also show that Democrats are intent on reasserting federal authority in the realm of conservation.

"When I changed the name from Resources to Natural Resources, it wasn't just for cosmetic reasons -- it's for what I view as the real guts of the responsibility of this committee," said Pombo's successor, Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.). "To those critics who say, 'Why do we need new wilderness?' I say these areas already are wilderness. We simply want to preserve them as they are, as they have been for generations, and preserve them for future generations."

Some environmentalists say even these measures cannot compensate for the tens of thousands of drilling permits the administration has leased in recent years. Katie McKalip, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, noted that in the past decade in Wyoming, a land area equal in size to Virginia has been leased for development.

"Our public lands, and the fish and wildlife species that depend on them, are falling victim to a management policy that effectively values one land use -- oil and gas development -- above all others," McKalip said.

Some Republicans question why the federal government would add more wilderness when it is struggling to maintain the public lands it already holds.

"If you're not preserving and taking care of what you've got, why are you adding to it?" said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who has placed parliamentary "holds" that are blocking action on several bills.

In an interview, Coburn said he has no problem with states designating wilderness areas if they are prepared to finance their upkeep, noting that the Forest Service has a multibillion-dollar backlog of projects. "If you want to do it, why shouldn't the state be doing it? If Oregon wants to create new wilderness, I'm all in favor of Oregon doing it."

But supporters of congressional action say that only the federal government has the capacity to protect the most vulnerable areas. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Washington state, pushed to include 30,000 acres of low-elevation areas in Wild Sky on the grounds that they were ecologically critical and close to major population centers. These areas, below 3,000 feet, have a Tolkienesque landscape, with bright green, moss-covered trees and aquamarine water that locals dub "glacier milk" because the ground-up stones from glaciers give it an ethereal color.

"We call it the cleanest, coldest, clearest river in the state," said high school science teacher Mike Town, who started pushing for wilderness protection nearly a decade ago. "If you really want to protect salmon, or even Puget Sound, the water quality of the rivers that drain into Puget Sound needs to be addressed."

Murray and Larsen, whose bill made concessions to church groups, the Boy Scouts and float-plane operators in order to forge a consensus on the bill, said it took time to convince some opponents that creating wilderness would benefit the local community. The lawmakers removed a few thousand acres from the plan to placate snowmobilers, clarified that existing float-plane use could continue and ensured that church groups and the Boy Scouts could still get access to their camping grounds.

"When you say 'wilderness,' the hair goes up on the back of their necks, and they envision chains going around trees they'll never touch," Murray recalled in an interview. "It can't just be in-your-face 'We're going to protect those areas, we don't care what you think.' "

With the support of several senior Republicans, including Sen. Larry Craig (Idaho) and then-Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, the Wild Sky bill passed the Senate three times, but Pombo repeatedly blocked it in the House.

"It was a failure of American democracy, where you had one man who prevented the will of the American people from being fulfilled," said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who battled Pombo on the Resources Committee. "What you're seeing right now is this one-man dam has broken."

Doug Scott, who has been working on wilderness bills for 30 years and is now policy director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness, said he thinks that someday the United States will complete the mission envisioned in the 1964 Wilderness Act. But it hasn't gotten there yet, he said.

"There will be a last acre -- we just won't know it's the last acre," he said. "And I don't think I'll live to see it."