By: Laura Paskus 07/15/2009
By all rights, he should have been executed; it was his fourth killing within a year.
But in June, federal officials gave a male wolf a rare reprieve.
In Catron County’s Canyon del Buey—outside the town of Aragon—Alpha Male 1114, a Mexican gray wolf, had killed and eaten a calf. His mate, Alpha Female 903, was likely involved as well.
Under the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction project’s current rules—which include a three-strikes-you’re-out rule for cattle-killing lobos—such a transgression is punishable by death.
“That particular animal and that particular pack has represented a really tough set of decisions because we recognize our responsibility to help ranchers if wolves are affecting their landscape,” Bud Fazio, Mexican gray wolf recovery coordinator at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, says. “Yet we also recognize our responsibility to restore wolves to the landscape and give them every chance possible to make it out there.”
In this particular case, Fazio says, managers allowed the wolf to remain in the wild where he could continue helping his mate raise their pups—“and therefore restore more wolves to the wild before any future decisions to remove him.”
Alpha Male 1114’s fate isn’t set in stone—if he kills any more livestock, he will be captured and moved to captivity or else shot and killed. And not all wolves are lucky enough to be left in the wild—even though the federal government has spent more than a decade trying to reintroduce lobos to the southwestern United States.
According to the most recent official tally, there are currently 52 documented wolves in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, a legally defined 4 million-acre area of national forest that straddles New Mexico and Arizona—and out of which wolves are not allowed to stray. A total of 10 packs have been documented: five in Arizona on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, and five on New Mexico’s Gila National Forest. Returning predators to the landscape off of which they’d been hunted, clubbed and poisoned was bound to be complicated. But to many, the current numbers illustrate the program’s failure.
Wolf reintroductions have occurred across the US, including in Idaho and Montana, as well as the Great Lakes region and the southeastern US. Those other programs are not without problems and complications. For example, the successful recovery in Idaho and Montana—which will lead to the animals being removed from protection under the endangered species list—has spurred plans by both states to allow hunting of the wolves. But the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction in the Southwest is the one most clearly struggling.
“The wolves will go extinct,” Michael Robinson, conservation advocate with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, says. “If the program is continued exactly the way it is now, these wolves will go extinct.”
Thanks to trigger-happy hunters and aggressive government bounty programs, by the mid-19th century, wolves had completely disappeared from the Southwest.
With only seven known alive in the wild, biologists realized the animal would soon be extinct—a problem that not only affected the species itself, but the ecosystem it inhabited.
In 1976, the federal government listed the Mexican gray wolf for protection under the nation’s Endangered Species Act. The following year, biologists began capturing wolves in Mexico—they found five—and began establishing a captive breeding program.
The Fish and Wildlife Service convened a recovery team and, in 1982, released a long-term recovery plan. Studies were completed, 18,000 public comments analyzed, lawsuits filed—on behalf of both environmentalists who supported the animal’s recovery as well as the livestock industry, which still opposes it today—and the agency sponsored hundreds of hours of meetings, hearings and public meetings.
And on March 29, 1998, with documents in place and decisions signed, biologists released the first wolves from pens in the Apache National Forest in Arizona.
“Our job was to go out late in the afternoon—that is, when it was still light—and open up the gates,” Fish and Wildlife Service’s former wolf coordinator Dave Parsons says. Managers had learned from the Yellowstone Park wolf reintroduction program in Montana that gates needed to be installed at the back of the pen, Parsons says; the Yellowstone animals didn’t want to go through the same gates they associated with their caretakers.
“So we went and opened those gates and attached motion-sensor video cameras to trees nearby to try and capture on film the event,” he says. They then retreated to their tents, waiting for dawn to break to see what the wolves had done.
In its 1982 recovery plan, the Fish and Wildlife Service had called for establishing a minimum population of 100 animals within their historic range; that number was the threshold by which to measure the effort’s success. In a separate document, it anticipated the wolf population would reach that number in 2006.
The program went “pretty well” until 2003, Parsons, who now works for the nonprofit Rewilding Institute, says. “The wild populations tracked our predictions almost—remarkably precisely—up to the end of 2003, where we predicted there would be 55 wolves, and the annual count was 55 wolves,” he says.
But then in 2003, the population started to decline. By the end of 2008, there were only 52 wolves estimated in the wild. “There’s been no real progress toward meeting the reintroduction objective of at least 100 wolves for the past five-plus years,” he says. “That’s pretty frustrating.”
So what exactly occurred in 2003?
That was the year the Fish and Wildlife Service signed an agreement establishing a new model for making management decisions, administered by the Adaptive Management Oversight Committee. In addition to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the committee consists of state, local and tribal partners. AMOC has been roundly criticized by activists—many of whom refer to it by its acronym, pronouncing it “amok,” rather than the preferred “A-mock.”
“Under AMOC, [the Fish and Wildlife Service] has managed to give away their statutory responsibility to recover endangered species to a consortium of agencies,” advocate Michael Robinson, who has been tracking the wolf program since the 1990s, says. One of AMOC’s management practices, Standard Operating Procedure 13, declares that any wolf known or suspected to have killed livestock on three occasions during a one-year period will be removed.
These “removals” can be lethal or non-lethal means of taking individual wolves out of the wild—and they are currently the leading cause of wolf removals from the wild. In fact, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s coordinator Fazio, agency personnel have removed a total of 70 wolves from the wild.
For comparison’s sake, 30 have been illegally shot (including five last year), 12 have been struck by vehicles, 10 have died from natural causes and nine from unknown causes.
In other words, of the various ways they might leave the wild, more wolves are being removed—or killed—by the very people charged with reintroducing the animals to the wild.
From his home in Pinos Altos—just north of Silver City, the tiny town is nestled at the edge of the Gila National Forest and sits about a half-mile from the wolf recovery area—Robinson has spent more than a decade advocating for the recovery of Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico.
“Most of the wolves that they release or that are born in the wild—about three-quarters of them at this point were born in the wild—most of them will end up dead or in captivity at human hands,” Robinson says. “Very few of them will live any length of time in the wild.”
The government has turned what was supposed to be a recovery program into a control program, he says. “That’s what we have here: an attempt by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the other agencies they work with to suppress the wolf population, confine the wolf population and ultimately to destroy it.”
One of Robinson’s biggest concerns about wolf recovery right now has to do with cattle carcasses left on public lands by the ranchers who graze their livestock on the national forests.
“If you go up to Beaverhead now, I could take you to two dead cows that are out there that were not killed by wolves—and those are just the two that are visible from the road,” Robinson says, referring to a portion of the recovery area at the north end of a road dividing the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness. “There’s God knows how many tens of thousands of cows there, and most of them are on very, very rough dirt roads that take a long time to get to and they’re clustered around little hidden stock tanks. Who knows how many dead cows are out there now?”
In other areas where wolf recovery efforts are underway, ranchers must clean up their dead livestock carcasses; if they don’t, Robinson says, managers are not required to control wolves from livestock attacks in the vicinity of those attractants. Within the Mexican gray wolf recovery area, managers recommend that ranchers bury carcasses or else render carcasses inedible—using such methods as lime or explosives. But even the Forest Service, which controls the permits ranchers must obtain to graze livestock on public lands, cannot force ranchers to clean up their dead cows, even if they might attract predators, such as wolves.
“It’s perfectly legal to leave a dead cow right by cattle that are so sickly that in some cases they can’t even get up,” Robinson says. He believes there is evidence such scavenging changes a wolf’s eating habits.
Darting back and forth between his office and living room, Robinson shuffles through piles of paperwork—the result of filing Freedom of Information Act requests to get a hold of internal agency correspondence and other documents. Using stakeholder meeting notes and correspondence, he traces the story of wolves in the Campbell Blue Pack who met untimely deaths.
In 1998, the alpha pair and their pup were in Arizona; ignoring a corral full of cows and calves, they moved on to successfully hunt elk.
Later, the male and his new mate left the recovery area and were captured for relocation.
Trying to climb out of a chain-link fence, the female broke her leg in captivity; she was given veterinary care and rereleased in New Mexico. After their release from captivity, the pair split, Robinson says.
Then, in February 2001, the male was spotted in Cottonwood Canyon, feeding on the carcass of a dead bull. According to two agency email messages from that time period, an investigation revealed the bull had not been killed by the wolf; rather, it had likely slipped and fallen on a steep, icy mountainside—“and broken a leg, probably lying there for up to a week before dying.” The bull was in an area that had been closed to grazing since the previous November.
Wildlife Services and Fish and Wildlife Service staff offered to pack out the dead animal, which, according to the email, was “an extremely arduous task…” Staff believed removing the carcass would encourage the wolf to move along out of the area. The rancher refused to allow removal of the carcass—unless the carcass was purchased.
Around the same time, the female wolf was spotted by a rancher near Winston who also had a dead milk cow up the canyon from her house.
Eventually, Robinson says, the two wolves reunited. They began ignoring elk and hunting cattle exclusively. Wary by this point of traps, both were captured by aerial net gun. The male was placed in captivity (and euthanized this spring, as his health had deteriorated). The female was eventually rereleased into the Gila Wilderness; from there, she traveled approximately 40 miles back to the Winston rancher’s grazing allotment on the national forest and began hunting cattle.
As a result, on May 27, 2003, a Fish and Wildlife Service staffer shot and killed F 592, the first of 11 wolves thus far shot dead by the government since the reintroduction program began.
Robinson admits such documentation does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that scavenging changes a wolf’s eating habits. “But it seems to indicate that these wolves changed their behavior due to their scavenging on livestock carcasses,” he says. “And there are other examples of this—this happens over and over again.”
The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association has always opposed wolf reintroduction, according to Caren Cowan, its executive director.
“But since the wolves are here, we have tried to work with all the agencies to minimize the impacts, as best we can, on our members,” she says. “With that said, the impacts have been devastating to many members, with loss of livestock, loss of pets, loss of horses, the ability not to even be able to use their yards or private property for fear of having wolves in their yards.”
Families and rural economies are being harmed, she says. “We estimate there have been 1,500 head, minimum, that have been lost,” she says. “But because of the confirmation measures that are required by the government, it’s difficult [to say]—but their numbers don’t match our numbers.”
Currently, the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife will compensate ranchers whose livestock have been killed by wolves—but Cowan points out that they don’t have an unlimited budget. “We believe if the government is going to turn predators out, then the government should be responsible for all losses.”
Finding a solution for all parties is difficult, Cowan says. “People are not being able to manage their own destiny,” she says, pointing out that ranchers aren’t allowed to shoot wolves the way they can coyotes, mountain lions or bears.
“This is like turning a sexual predator loose in your neighborhood and telling you that you can’t do anything about it,” she says.
With a warm, soothing voice, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s new wolf coordinator, Bud Fazio, seems accustomed to calming tensions. Despite leading a program that has become increasingly wieldy, he doesn’t seem battle-weary.
Of course, he’s only been here since May—he worked the past eight years as coordinator of the red wolf recovery project in the southeastern United States—and has yet to spend much time in the field.
He’s aware of the program’s problems and the many criticisms leveled against it.
“I think one of the biggest challenges is helping people to understand that wolves and people can in fact live together on the landscape,” he says. “With that comes the challenge that we have to take care of people on the landscape, as much as we do wolves—and we are always striving toward working with our partners to do that.”
Currently, the service is trying to establish an interdiction program that would offer ranches incentives to manage cattle differently—specifically, to manage cattle in a way that would allow wolves to exist in the wild. The program might also compensate ranchers for cattle lost to wolves.
The agency also is at work on two documents: a conservation assessment evaluating what has—and has not—worked within the program and an environmental assessment, which is exploring whether the wolf release area might be expanded from a small portion of the recovery area in eastern Arizona to a larger area that includes New Mexico.
The agency also hopes to redefine the term “breeding pair”—a term crucial to how the reintroduction plan is evaluated. The program’s original goal was to have at least 100 individual wolves and 18 breeding pairs. Breeding pairs—different from mated pairs—are currently defined as an alpha male and alpha female who have successfully bred and reared pups through the end of the calendar year.
In 2008—10 years after reintroduction efforts began—there were only two documented breeding pairs. Currently, Fazio believes there are between three and eight packs with pups living in the wild.
Each month, the program team posts monthly progress reports online. Reading these reports, it’s easy to see how intensively these animals are managed—even micro-managed.
In early February, for example, project personnel darted and captured a female wolf approximately 30 miles outside of the recovery zone after being moved into New Mexico in January. She was inspected at a vet clinic in Pinetop, Ariz., then placed within a chain-link-fence pen within the Fox Mountain pack territory “in an attempt to allow the pack to locate it.”
After several days, personnel decided that, “due to [her] uncertain breeding status” a different female wolf from captivity should replace her in the pen—to maximize the mating potential of an alpha male. She was removed from the pen and placed in the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility near Socorro. The female wolf who replaced her was found dead within eight days. Her death remains under investigation.
It’s not an unusual story.
Even the project’s poster child—Brunhilda, the alpha female of the first wolf pack introduced in the Southwest, whose image graced agency posters and public relations material—met an unfortunate end. In July 2005, biologists captured her, planning to remove her radio collar and vaccinate her four pups. But the wolf overheated during her checkup and died. That was a mistake, obviously—and one team biologists took to heart.
Those biologists, however, aren’t the ones making the big decisions that affect the wolves. That responsibility is left to members of AMOC.
Given that the mandates of some of those member agencies are related to livestock production and animal control rather than endangered species protection, it is fair to say some committee members look less favorably upon the plight of wolves than others.
For its part, the stance of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has evolved in recent years, in large part because of Gov. Bill Richardson’s stated support for the wolf program.
That evolution—and the agencies’ collaboration on the program—can be considered something of a success, according to Matt Wunder, chief of the department’s Conservation Service’s Division.
“In terms of the population, clearly, I think everybody would say that as far as the numbers go, we would have liked to see the numbers higher than they are at this point,” he says. “Because those numbers have fluctuated in the 40 to 60 range for a number of years now, I think that everybody feels that…we certainly could be farther along than we are this point.”
Most of the division’s time, he says, is spent trying to minimize conflicts between livestock and wolves.
“We recognize that there are impacts, that there are very polarized constituencies out there that are either very pro-wolf or, in some cases, very anti-wolf,” he says. “This is definitely not an easy program, but the department is definitely committed to it.”
This spring, in fact, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish was the only member of AMOC that recommended against removing from the wild or killing Alpha Male 1114, the wolf who had killed four head of cattle within a one-year period.
According to the agency’s recommendation, the rancher in question had rejected efforts to apply “proactive” measures on public lands; additionally, the male’s survival in the wild was linked to that of the pups as well.
The state of wolf recovery is so shaky that removal of this one animal could be detrimental not only to the survival of the San Mateo pack, but to the entire population’s success. As such, his life was spared—for now.
Yet even in the wild—and blessed by the best intentions of program managers—things haven’t gone smoothly for AM 1114, his mate, nor the six pups born to them in April.
Two pups were found dead, Fazio says. The adults abandoned the den, bringing one pup with them. When the female returned to retrieve the remaining pups, she found they had backed themselves into a crevice. Unable to coax them out, she eventually left them behind.
“We did our best to first try to bring the pups out of the crevice, and then we tried to reunite them with their parents,” he says. “When that didn’t work with the first pup, we made the call that it was more important that the remaining pups survive.”
“The reason we put all that effort in is they have the kind of genetics we want out there on the landscape,” Fazio says, explaining that to create a viable population, its genetic makeup must be diverse.
Yet, the yips of these pups—like the howls of so many others who were meant to again roam southwestern forests—will be heard only from within captivity...SantaFeReporter
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Range War In the West
There is a range war out West. And unless you live in Idaho or Nevada or any other Western state you probably have no idea what is happening or why should you care. But wherever you live in America you should care because sooner or later it will affect you.
This range war isn't about water rights or ranchers against homesteaders or big ranchers versus small ranchers like the Johnson County War in Wyoming in 1892. It is between ranchers who have worked the land raising cattle and sheep for over a century and environmental outlaws whose stated goal is driving them off the very land they need to survive and prosper. And this time the weapon of choice is not a Colt .45 or a Winchester rifle, but something much more deadly and destructive -- the lawsuit.
So what's the issue?
There are more than a quarter of a billion acres of public lands in the West. For over century a system has been in place to allow cattle and sheep ranchers access to portions of this land so that their animals can graze during certain times of year. Chances are that steak you throw on the BBQ spent some of its life on the range before being sold and sent to feedlots across the country to be fattened up to make sure that steak has some nice marbling.
Over the years there have been bitter disputes between ranchers and environmentalists over whether this practice should continue. For the ranchers this was not a philosophical discussion about the best use of the land or saving an endangered species. It was about their very survival and the survival of the cattle and sheep industries that contribute so much to the economies of many Western states. And this was not about keeping a few cowboys or sheepherders employed because there is an employment multiplier effect -- 1 ranch job creates 7 jobs to support the industry.
Recently, reasonable mainstream environmental and conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy have worked closely with the ranchers to find common ground that can address both the needs of this beautiful land while preserving a way of life that is an essential part of the West's past, present and future. Working together, the ranchers and the conservationists listened to each other and came up with plans to ensure the survival of both.
But some environmentalist outlaws like the Western Watersheds Project had no interest in compromise and since have used and abused the legal system of this country to deny the ranchers their rights and seeks to have the U.S. Government abrogate the legal contracts that allows them to use public lands for grazing.
This band of outlaws is led by a transplanted Easterner, Jon Marvel who some 30 years ago moved to Hailey, Idaho which is near the millionaire's playground of Sun Valley. He was an architect who designed huge homes for the rich and famous. He has designed over 200 homes near Hailey which has contributed to the sprawl now happening in that town. He says never designed a house over 7,000 square feet. Now that's one hell of a carbon footprint for a devoted environmentalist seeking to "protect" the range from the evil of cowboys and cattle!
He and his group have been known to be verbally and physically abusive to government officials who are only trying to do their job. In short they are not just environmental outlaws who operate outside the mainstream of environmental groups they are also bullies who use the tactics of intimidation not conciliation.
Well they must want something? Not really except to drive the ranchers out of business and let the land return to its pristine state when there were no cattle. I have news for Mr. Marvel, before the cattle even came to the West, huge herds of elk and buffalo roamed the plains and valleys for centuries and I'll bet they ate a little grass and tramped through streams.
Their tactic is to sue the federal government by challenging the rancher's permits on technicalities and also burying officials in a flood of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. It is estimated that just to fill the current requests it would take one person 6 years working full time. This means that trained range managers and scientists who should be working with the ranchers and other users of public lands are instead filling out paperwork. If you are a taxpayer you should be outraged.
I said earlier that even if you didn't live in the West this would affect you in some way. Eventually the price of beef would rise as there would be fewer cattle merging into the food supply.
But it might also put a severe crimp in the Obama administration's desire to upgrade the electricity grid, build new pipelines to carry the West's abundant natural gas to the rest of the nation and also take advantage of the wind corridors that dot the region by building wind farms and the arid deserts for solar farms.
It's already happening. Interior Secretary Salazar recently came to California to talk up building solar farms on public land near the Mojave Desert. But California Senator Dianne Feinstein is dead set against it as are radical environmentalists. They've been complaining about lack of renewable energy for years and now that it might happen they suddenly develop a bad case of NIMBYism.
Why?
Because these hypocrites don't want any of that on public land either and you cannot achieve the president's energy goals unless you use the vast public lands of the West. It is just not possible.
Finally you should care because this type of bullying and intimidation is just plain wrong. And it's hard to deal with folks who's only stated goal is to drive you out of business and destroy a way of life that has survived for over a hundred years against all the hardships that either man or Mother Nature can inflict.
So the next time you fire up the BBQ to grill your steak or hamburger just remember where it came from and the hard work that went into putting it on your plate. But also remember that if some folks get their way, next year it might cost a lot more.
This range war isn't about water rights or ranchers against homesteaders or big ranchers versus small ranchers like the Johnson County War in Wyoming in 1892. It is between ranchers who have worked the land raising cattle and sheep for over a century and environmental outlaws whose stated goal is driving them off the very land they need to survive and prosper. And this time the weapon of choice is not a Colt .45 or a Winchester rifle, but something much more deadly and destructive -- the lawsuit.
So what's the issue?
There are more than a quarter of a billion acres of public lands in the West. For over century a system has been in place to allow cattle and sheep ranchers access to portions of this land so that their animals can graze during certain times of year. Chances are that steak you throw on the BBQ spent some of its life on the range before being sold and sent to feedlots across the country to be fattened up to make sure that steak has some nice marbling.
Over the years there have been bitter disputes between ranchers and environmentalists over whether this practice should continue. For the ranchers this was not a philosophical discussion about the best use of the land or saving an endangered species. It was about their very survival and the survival of the cattle and sheep industries that contribute so much to the economies of many Western states. And this was not about keeping a few cowboys or sheepherders employed because there is an employment multiplier effect -- 1 ranch job creates 7 jobs to support the industry.
Recently, reasonable mainstream environmental and conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy have worked closely with the ranchers to find common ground that can address both the needs of this beautiful land while preserving a way of life that is an essential part of the West's past, present and future. Working together, the ranchers and the conservationists listened to each other and came up with plans to ensure the survival of both.
But some environmentalist outlaws like the Western Watersheds Project had no interest in compromise and since have used and abused the legal system of this country to deny the ranchers their rights and seeks to have the U.S. Government abrogate the legal contracts that allows them to use public lands for grazing.
This band of outlaws is led by a transplanted Easterner, Jon Marvel who some 30 years ago moved to Hailey, Idaho which is near the millionaire's playground of Sun Valley. He was an architect who designed huge homes for the rich and famous. He has designed over 200 homes near Hailey which has contributed to the sprawl now happening in that town. He says never designed a house over 7,000 square feet. Now that's one hell of a carbon footprint for a devoted environmentalist seeking to "protect" the range from the evil of cowboys and cattle!
He and his group have been known to be verbally and physically abusive to government officials who are only trying to do their job. In short they are not just environmental outlaws who operate outside the mainstream of environmental groups they are also bullies who use the tactics of intimidation not conciliation.
Well they must want something? Not really except to drive the ranchers out of business and let the land return to its pristine state when there were no cattle. I have news for Mr. Marvel, before the cattle even came to the West, huge herds of elk and buffalo roamed the plains and valleys for centuries and I'll bet they ate a little grass and tramped through streams.
Their tactic is to sue the federal government by challenging the rancher's permits on technicalities and also burying officials in a flood of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. It is estimated that just to fill the current requests it would take one person 6 years working full time. This means that trained range managers and scientists who should be working with the ranchers and other users of public lands are instead filling out paperwork. If you are a taxpayer you should be outraged.
I said earlier that even if you didn't live in the West this would affect you in some way. Eventually the price of beef would rise as there would be fewer cattle merging into the food supply.
But it might also put a severe crimp in the Obama administration's desire to upgrade the electricity grid, build new pipelines to carry the West's abundant natural gas to the rest of the nation and also take advantage of the wind corridors that dot the region by building wind farms and the arid deserts for solar farms.
It's already happening. Interior Secretary Salazar recently came to California to talk up building solar farms on public land near the Mojave Desert. But California Senator Dianne Feinstein is dead set against it as are radical environmentalists. They've been complaining about lack of renewable energy for years and now that it might happen they suddenly develop a bad case of NIMBYism.
Why?
Because these hypocrites don't want any of that on public land either and you cannot achieve the president's energy goals unless you use the vast public lands of the West. It is just not possible.
Finally you should care because this type of bullying and intimidation is just plain wrong. And it's hard to deal with folks who's only stated goal is to drive you out of business and destroy a way of life that has survived for over a hundred years against all the hardships that either man or Mother Nature can inflict.
So the next time you fire up the BBQ to grill your steak or hamburger just remember where it came from and the hard work that went into putting it on your plate. But also remember that if some folks get their way, next year it might cost a lot more.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Ranchers: Politics have become part of industry
There once were just cowboys, cattle and wide open space, rambling across an eastern Oregon landscape too hot for most humans, too dry to grow much other than sagebrush.
Now, Oregon steaks are served in South Korea and ranchers fret over cattle damage to streams.
To hear rancher Ken Holliday tell it, the romance of ranching has long been gone. But the constant roller coaster ride that sapped the thrill is on a downhill run with the recession, leaving ranchers feeling beaten.
"It's never been easy to make a living," says Holliday, who runs a 10,000-acre ranch near John Day. "But now, you kind of wonder why you even do it."
In Oregon's vast cattle country, where life yields to nature's whims and business bucks with the market's whiplash, the global downturn is bearing down. At the start of a food chain that ends on your plate, Oregon ranchers are trying to hang on through a sudden swing that could mean a losing year for an industry that roped $664 million in gross sales last year.
In 2008, ranchers paid record high prices for corn, hay and feed an investment now all but lost as beef competes against falling prices for poultry and pork. People worldwide are buying less meat. Restaurants are ordering fewer steaks. And the hides that make shoes, car seats and furniture aren't worth much in a recession that has curbed consumer lust for material things.
Summer is supposed to be beef's best-selling season. But for many ranchers, the recession heaps pressure on an Old World industry trying to find a place in a new age. Cyclical downturns are the norm in agriculture. But this one exacerbates a fundamental shift unfolding in the beef cattle industry, moving toward tightened regulations, choosier consumers and heightened environmental concerns.
"There are many issues affecting the industry today," says Brent Searle, an Oregon Department of Agriculture economist. "Some are environmental and social, some are microbial. ... There are clear agendas and influences now on how food is produced and distributed."
So far, Oregon ranchers have adapted while holding tight to traditions. The big hats, big belts and big boots have remained unchanged for generations. Business and life follow the law of the seasons. And the one thing a rancher knows is what goes down must come back up again if he can hang on long enough.
Hope never dies: At the Central Oregon Livestock Auction, auctioneer Trent Stewart stares from under a wide brim, noting a good omen on the way. Rain a sprinkling of gold for pastures across the high desert terrain.
"Well," he says. "What are we going to do with all this grass? The gentleman upstairs must be watching out for us."
Outside Madras on U.S. 97, the livestock auction is a fast-paced cattle-hawking operation in which 35,000 head are swapped annually, totaling up to $20 million in gross sales each year. Ranchers, cattle buyers, feedlot operators, truckers and others congregate weekly to carry out the business transactions for an industry that's among the largest in terms of its economic and environmental impact.
In Oregon and the nation, cattle are among the top agricultural moneymakers, as well as the biggest consumers of corn. Oregon has 605,000 beef cattle in 11,500 operations, mostly in the southern and eastern parts of the state. Raising cattle on pastures consumes about 60 percent of the state's 17 million acres of farmland, according to an Oregon State University Extension Service report.
The heart of the state's beef cattle industry lives in its far-flung reaches. In counties such as Baker and Grant, cattle and calves make up more than half of the gross agricultural sales, and family ranches are a bedrock for rural economies.
In Malheur County, Jordan Valley would be a retirement community of 300 if not for the longtime ranchers and their families, says Jayne Collins, owner of the remaining grocery store, Ranch Hand Hardware.
"This town won't go away, because there's ranching here," says Collins, 59.
But in recent years, ranchers have been under the gun of changing social values that could alter their way of life. Many say they'll survive the recession but perhaps not the broader shifts in the industry.
Like logging, ranching has grown controversial and political. Environmental groups worry that cattle herds trample stream banks, causing erosion to salmon habitat. Debates wage over whether cattle should be allowed to graze on public lands, which make up a large portion of the state's pastureland.
"Obviously, grazing has been a primary use of public lands for the last century," says Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over the impact of cattle on public lands along the John Day River. "Now there are competing values for wildlife and recreation. With that, there are social and economic conflicts."
At the same time, consumers demand more natural beef raised on grass, without hormones or antibiotics. That requires more grazing land. And ranchers must adjust to a globalized marketplace, where currency rates matter and consumers overseas can bolster razor-thin profit margins.
Many nearing retirement in an aging industry wonder what the future will look like. The high costs of land mean few people can afford to jump in. Their kids are leaving the rugged life for steadier wages.
Holliday, 53, runs 2,200 cattle at his ranch on the banks of the John Day River, founded by his father more than 50 years ago. He is hunkered down in the fight against environmental groups, but he considers other options. If he sold his land, he says, he could cash in big.
"On paper I'm a multimillionaire," Holliday says. "But we're barely holding our teeth together."
Over a lifetime, a typical cow may eat thousands of pounds of corn, hay and feed before it ends up at the slaughterhouse. And last year, the cost of those ingredients went sky-high.
Feed shot up 22 percent, fertilizer and chemicals went up 26 percent and fuel rose 14 percent, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Corn, the primary diet of cattle in the last months of their lives, has tripled in price over recent years.
The high input costs are a big reason economists predict a money-losing year for the industry nationwide, with losses of up to $130 a head, which ripples throughout the chain, according to CattleFax, a market research firm. With 26 million head of cattle in the U.S., the losses multiply fast.
Even in a normal year, consumers might have hesitated to pay for beef at last year's production prices. But with the recession, world demand for beef has dropped, tamping a decade of growth fueled by rising incomes from here to India.
In the U.S., people are simply eating out less. At supermarkets, they buy fewer luxury items such as T-bone and New York steaks (about $6.20 a pound) and more of the less expensive and less profitable hamburger ($2.25 a pound). Still, poultry and pork continue to be an even cheaper alternative (from $1.85 to $2.95 a pound).
"People with less income eat out less," says Gregg Doud, an economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents 30,000 ranchers nationwide. "That's clearly impacted our business mostly in the white table cloth restaurants and steakhouses. And steak is the highest value item."
To get consumers buying, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association kicked off grilling season early. The group released 60 million price discount coupons this year, compared with 10 million last year.
But the nonedible parts of a cow have tanked, too. This year, the collapse of the auto industry and low demand for leather consumer goods could mean additional losses.
"It's very hard for everyone to make money on this deal," says Dean Jennings, executive director of the Oregon Beef Council. "There are four cuts of chicken and dozens of dozens of cuts of beef, each with corresponding prices."
The banking crisis means that the costs of some loans have also gone up, which will further pinch profit margins in coming months. Jay Penick, CEO of Northwest Farm Credit Services based in Spokane, says the beef cattle industry is just at the beginning of this cyclical downturn.
"This downturn is more severe and occurred quicker," Penick says. "The cycles have been much more extreme, the highs are higher, and the lows are lower. All of our industries in agriculture will have to adjust to the new economic realities that we face."
Ranchers have started paring their herds and cutting back production to balance supply and demand. Beef production is down 3.5 percent nationwide, and average prices hover at about $3.92 a pound, by the latest USDA estimates.
The roller coaster is a part of life in agriculture. But some Oregon ranchers have found ways to even out the dips and dives.
Rancher Louie Molt sells hay, runs an organic farm and a land-leveling company on his 300-acre ranch in Burns. Several years ago, he opened his own restaurant, the Meat Hook Steak House, to sell the meat he raises to reap a bigger profit.
"We've cut out the middleman anywhere we can," Molt says. "We're trying to make money any way we can."
Other ranchers are specializing in raising all-natural beef, a growing market that Oregon leads. Country Natural Beef, a well-known cooperative of 120 ranches that started in Oregon, rode the all-natural movement early on, hoping to sidestep the commodity market and its losses.
The co-op also adopted a different business model by calculating a cost of production and selling directly to retailers such as Whole Foods and New Seasons with a 3 percent rate of return.
"Ranchers and farmers have always been price takers," says Scott Exo, executive director of the Food Alliance, a nonprofit that certifies sustainable farms, ranches and food handlers "Sometimes they cover their costs, other times they don't. Country Natural Beef tried to change that."
But even Country Natural Beef isn't safe from the economy's erratic jolts. The natural-meat market faces fierce competition from big national producers who have jumped on the bandwagon. And consumers, more careful with their dollars, are trading down for cheaper meats at the butcher counter.
Sales of natural and organic beef products, which can cost as much as 50 percent more than commodity beef, have declined by about 5 percent from last year, according to data from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. And Country Natural Beef ranchers are searching for ways to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack, hoping consumers will continue paying the premium price. Like others, they'll be harvesting 5 percent fewer cattle.
In order to cover his costs, Dan Barnhart, a Country Natural Beef rancher near Philomath, says he's been selling off more cattle from his herd of 180. He's doing everything he can to get through a downturn with no clear end.
"I've sold them to make it, but that's not sustainable," Barnhart says. "I have to cut costs. I need to find a better way to winter the cows. I don't have all the answers."
Now, Oregon steaks are served in South Korea and ranchers fret over cattle damage to streams.
To hear rancher Ken Holliday tell it, the romance of ranching has long been gone. But the constant roller coaster ride that sapped the thrill is on a downhill run with the recession, leaving ranchers feeling beaten.
"It's never been easy to make a living," says Holliday, who runs a 10,000-acre ranch near John Day. "But now, you kind of wonder why you even do it."
In Oregon's vast cattle country, where life yields to nature's whims and business bucks with the market's whiplash, the global downturn is bearing down. At the start of a food chain that ends on your plate, Oregon ranchers are trying to hang on through a sudden swing that could mean a losing year for an industry that roped $664 million in gross sales last year.
In 2008, ranchers paid record high prices for corn, hay and feed an investment now all but lost as beef competes against falling prices for poultry and pork. People worldwide are buying less meat. Restaurants are ordering fewer steaks. And the hides that make shoes, car seats and furniture aren't worth much in a recession that has curbed consumer lust for material things.
Summer is supposed to be beef's best-selling season. But for many ranchers, the recession heaps pressure on an Old World industry trying to find a place in a new age. Cyclical downturns are the norm in agriculture. But this one exacerbates a fundamental shift unfolding in the beef cattle industry, moving toward tightened regulations, choosier consumers and heightened environmental concerns.
"There are many issues affecting the industry today," says Brent Searle, an Oregon Department of Agriculture economist. "Some are environmental and social, some are microbial. ... There are clear agendas and influences now on how food is produced and distributed."
So far, Oregon ranchers have adapted while holding tight to traditions. The big hats, big belts and big boots have remained unchanged for generations. Business and life follow the law of the seasons. And the one thing a rancher knows is what goes down must come back up again if he can hang on long enough.
Hope never dies: At the Central Oregon Livestock Auction, auctioneer Trent Stewart stares from under a wide brim, noting a good omen on the way. Rain a sprinkling of gold for pastures across the high desert terrain.
"Well," he says. "What are we going to do with all this grass? The gentleman upstairs must be watching out for us."
Outside Madras on U.S. 97, the livestock auction is a fast-paced cattle-hawking operation in which 35,000 head are swapped annually, totaling up to $20 million in gross sales each year. Ranchers, cattle buyers, feedlot operators, truckers and others congregate weekly to carry out the business transactions for an industry that's among the largest in terms of its economic and environmental impact.
In Oregon and the nation, cattle are among the top agricultural moneymakers, as well as the biggest consumers of corn. Oregon has 605,000 beef cattle in 11,500 operations, mostly in the southern and eastern parts of the state. Raising cattle on pastures consumes about 60 percent of the state's 17 million acres of farmland, according to an Oregon State University Extension Service report.
The heart of the state's beef cattle industry lives in its far-flung reaches. In counties such as Baker and Grant, cattle and calves make up more than half of the gross agricultural sales, and family ranches are a bedrock for rural economies.
In Malheur County, Jordan Valley would be a retirement community of 300 if not for the longtime ranchers and their families, says Jayne Collins, owner of the remaining grocery store, Ranch Hand Hardware.
"This town won't go away, because there's ranching here," says Collins, 59.
But in recent years, ranchers have been under the gun of changing social values that could alter their way of life. Many say they'll survive the recession but perhaps not the broader shifts in the industry.
Like logging, ranching has grown controversial and political. Environmental groups worry that cattle herds trample stream banks, causing erosion to salmon habitat. Debates wage over whether cattle should be allowed to graze on public lands, which make up a large portion of the state's pastureland.
"Obviously, grazing has been a primary use of public lands for the last century," says Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over the impact of cattle on public lands along the John Day River. "Now there are competing values for wildlife and recreation. With that, there are social and economic conflicts."
At the same time, consumers demand more natural beef raised on grass, without hormones or antibiotics. That requires more grazing land. And ranchers must adjust to a globalized marketplace, where currency rates matter and consumers overseas can bolster razor-thin profit margins.
Many nearing retirement in an aging industry wonder what the future will look like. The high costs of land mean few people can afford to jump in. Their kids are leaving the rugged life for steadier wages.
Holliday, 53, runs 2,200 cattle at his ranch on the banks of the John Day River, founded by his father more than 50 years ago. He is hunkered down in the fight against environmental groups, but he considers other options. If he sold his land, he says, he could cash in big.
"On paper I'm a multimillionaire," Holliday says. "But we're barely holding our teeth together."
Over a lifetime, a typical cow may eat thousands of pounds of corn, hay and feed before it ends up at the slaughterhouse. And last year, the cost of those ingredients went sky-high.
Feed shot up 22 percent, fertilizer and chemicals went up 26 percent and fuel rose 14 percent, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Corn, the primary diet of cattle in the last months of their lives, has tripled in price over recent years.
The high input costs are a big reason economists predict a money-losing year for the industry nationwide, with losses of up to $130 a head, which ripples throughout the chain, according to CattleFax, a market research firm. With 26 million head of cattle in the U.S., the losses multiply fast.
Even in a normal year, consumers might have hesitated to pay for beef at last year's production prices. But with the recession, world demand for beef has dropped, tamping a decade of growth fueled by rising incomes from here to India.
In the U.S., people are simply eating out less. At supermarkets, they buy fewer luxury items such as T-bone and New York steaks (about $6.20 a pound) and more of the less expensive and less profitable hamburger ($2.25 a pound). Still, poultry and pork continue to be an even cheaper alternative (from $1.85 to $2.95 a pound).
"People with less income eat out less," says Gregg Doud, an economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents 30,000 ranchers nationwide. "That's clearly impacted our business mostly in the white table cloth restaurants and steakhouses. And steak is the highest value item."
To get consumers buying, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association kicked off grilling season early. The group released 60 million price discount coupons this year, compared with 10 million last year.
But the nonedible parts of a cow have tanked, too. This year, the collapse of the auto industry and low demand for leather consumer goods could mean additional losses.
"It's very hard for everyone to make money on this deal," says Dean Jennings, executive director of the Oregon Beef Council. "There are four cuts of chicken and dozens of dozens of cuts of beef, each with corresponding prices."
The banking crisis means that the costs of some loans have also gone up, which will further pinch profit margins in coming months. Jay Penick, CEO of Northwest Farm Credit Services based in Spokane, says the beef cattle industry is just at the beginning of this cyclical downturn.
"This downturn is more severe and occurred quicker," Penick says. "The cycles have been much more extreme, the highs are higher, and the lows are lower. All of our industries in agriculture will have to adjust to the new economic realities that we face."
Ranchers have started paring their herds and cutting back production to balance supply and demand. Beef production is down 3.5 percent nationwide, and average prices hover at about $3.92 a pound, by the latest USDA estimates.
The roller coaster is a part of life in agriculture. But some Oregon ranchers have found ways to even out the dips and dives.
Rancher Louie Molt sells hay, runs an organic farm and a land-leveling company on his 300-acre ranch in Burns. Several years ago, he opened his own restaurant, the Meat Hook Steak House, to sell the meat he raises to reap a bigger profit.
"We've cut out the middleman anywhere we can," Molt says. "We're trying to make money any way we can."
Other ranchers are specializing in raising all-natural beef, a growing market that Oregon leads. Country Natural Beef, a well-known cooperative of 120 ranches that started in Oregon, rode the all-natural movement early on, hoping to sidestep the commodity market and its losses.
The co-op also adopted a different business model by calculating a cost of production and selling directly to retailers such as Whole Foods and New Seasons with a 3 percent rate of return.
"Ranchers and farmers have always been price takers," says Scott Exo, executive director of the Food Alliance, a nonprofit that certifies sustainable farms, ranches and food handlers "Sometimes they cover their costs, other times they don't. Country Natural Beef tried to change that."
But even Country Natural Beef isn't safe from the economy's erratic jolts. The natural-meat market faces fierce competition from big national producers who have jumped on the bandwagon. And consumers, more careful with their dollars, are trading down for cheaper meats at the butcher counter.
Sales of natural and organic beef products, which can cost as much as 50 percent more than commodity beef, have declined by about 5 percent from last year, according to data from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. And Country Natural Beef ranchers are searching for ways to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack, hoping consumers will continue paying the premium price. Like others, they'll be harvesting 5 percent fewer cattle.
In order to cover his costs, Dan Barnhart, a Country Natural Beef rancher near Philomath, says he's been selling off more cattle from his herd of 180. He's doing everything he can to get through a downturn with no clear end.
"I've sold them to make it, but that's not sustainable," Barnhart says. "I have to cut costs. I need to find a better way to winter the cows. I don't have all the answers."
Monday, June 29, 2009
High court losses stun environmentalists
Environmentalists are 0-for-5 at the high court this term.
Marcia Coyle
June 29, 2009
Environmentalists suffered a stunning 0-for-5 outcome in the U.S. Supreme Court this term, their "worst term ever," according to advocates and scholars.
The defeats left the environmental community, and even its traditional antagonist in these cases — the business community — wondering where the Court is heading in this increasingly important area of the law.
Is the Roberts Court pro-business, anti-environment, pro-government — or something else? Their answers are as varied as the issues raised in the five cases that the justices decided.
What is clear is the Court's heightened interest in environmental law. The justices have decided 15 cases in just the past five terms, but in none of those terms, in fact in none of the past nine terms, have environmentalists experienced a complete shutout.
"This has never, I believe, happened before, and this includes some big wins," said Richard Lazarus, co-director of the Georgetown University Law Center Supreme Court Institute, who argued and lost one of the five decisions this term.
For environmentalists, the defeats were particularly painful because their interests had prevailed in the courts below in all five cases. The justices granted review at the behest of business, even when the solicitor general of the United States recommended denying review. "They were all victories below for environmentalists, so you wonder if the Court is making some strategic choices in the cases it picks," said Jonathan Cannon, director of the environmental and land use program at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Based on the five decisions, the trend this term is "business always wins, even when the government's interest is to the contrary," said John Hanson, a partner at Washington's Beveridge & Diamond who represents businesses in environmental litigation.
Business' remarkable record may be due in part, Lazarus suggested, to the entry this term of the private sector Supreme Court bar on behalf of business interests in environmental cases, including such well-known, repeat players as former Solicitor General Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Maureen Mahoney of Latham & Watkins. "In each of these cases, business turned not to the usual retinue of environmental legal experts, but to expert Supreme Court advocates," said Lazarus, who has studied the influence and effectiveness of those appellate practitioners.
Statisticians would say five cases are too small a sample on which to predict an enduring pro-business trend, said Virginia's Cannon, but he added, "It certainly sends a signal."
Although none of the five decisions is a landmark ruling, all raised bread-and-butter environmental issues, some with potentially huge implications for the ability of environmentalists and the government to enforce the nation's major environmental laws.
The justices ruled:
• 6-3 for electric utilities that argued that the Clean Water Act authorizes the use of cost-benefit analysis in regulating water cooling intake structures (Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper).
• 6-3 for a gold mine operator that argued that the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to issue permits for dumping dredge or fill dirt into an Alaskan lake without satisfying more stringent pollution limits for permits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation).
• 8-1 that the federal Superfund law does not mandate joint and several liability in every cost-recovery case but permits apportionment, and narrowing so-called "arranger liability" of companies that sold the product that ultimately polluted the site (Burlington Northern Railway/Shell Oil Co. v. U.S.).
• 6-3 to lift an injunction requiring the Navy to conduct an environmental impact statement and limiting its use of sonar when marine mammal activity is present (Winter v. NRDC).
• 5-4 that environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations exempting the service from notice, comment and appeal processes for fire-rehabilitation and salvage-timber sales (Summers v. Earth Island Institute).
"None of the cases individually is a blockbuster, but collectively the Court is chipping away at the very foundations of environmental law in this country," said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. John Echeverria of Vermont Law School said the Court's concern that industry is overburdened by environmental regulations is driving its decisions.
"The analysis in Coeur Alaska is expressly based on concerns about burdens on industry and the Court's reluctance to imagine Congress would have imposed those burdens," he said. "I think that's the overriding theme of the Court this term in these cases. The Court is almost on a mission. While on the one hand, it has a great deal of concern about burdens on industry, it has expressed very little concern about impacts on the environment."
Beveridge & Diamond's Hanson, as well as other industry lawyers and some environmental scholars, said the decisions, while undoubtedly pro-business, also could be seen as pro-government. With the exception of the Superfund case, in which the executive branch opposed the industry's liability argument, they noted that the Court upheld the government's view in these cases.
But pro-government is also pro-business because the government's positions in the cases were formed by the Bush administration, countered Amy Sinden of Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. "You have Bush administration positions trying to protect corporate interests by weakening environmental protections put in place by Congress," she said. "The Court's conservative majority is becoming known for supporting an expansive view of executive power and you see it playing out here.
"The good news for the Obama administration is that, in most of these cases, the Court is essentially saying the executive branch had discretion to use this narrow reading of Congress' laws," she said. "That leaves an opening for the Obama administration to read those statutes differently."
REVERSING THE 9TH CIRCUIT
Russell Frye of Washington's FryeLaw, who filed an industry-supporting amicus brief in the Entergy case, noted that four of the five cases came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is "more solicitous" of environmental groups' views. "I think that's inconsistent with the majority of the Supreme Court these days," Frye said. "I would say the Supreme Court record isn't so much a reflection of pro-industry bias as it is an environmental-neutral approach to the legal issues presented."
While disagreeing on the Court's motivation in the five cases this term, the business and environmentalists generally agree on which decisions will have the most impact.
Hanson, Frye and other industry lawyers point to the Superfund ruling that limited so-called "arranger" liability and opened up the use of apportionment of cleanup costs among responsible parties in lieu of joint and several liability.
The decision has already "triggered an explosion" of apportionment arguments, said Hanson, who handles Superfund cases across the country. "This is another opportunity, particularly in difficult economic times, to try to cut your costs."
Georgetown's Lazarus and Vermont's Echeverria said the decision undermined a "cardinal part" of the Superfund law — routine joint and several liability. "The message of that decision is liability can be and should be routinely contested," said Echeverria. "The only saving grace is the Superfund program is very mature and has accomplished a lot of its work in the last couple of decades."
Both sides also pointed to the Summers decision, in which the court narrowed the standing of environmental groups to challenge the failure of agencies to follow procedures or rules.
"That may be a substantial reduction in the scope of standing from what many of us thought it was," said industry counsel Frye. "There will be some precedent interpreting it soon. I know I'm using it now in one or two of my cases."
Environmentalists called Summers "bad" on standing. "It illustrates a profound disagreement between the ideological wings of the court about access to courts," said Kendall, adding that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. "views cutting back on standing as a central pillar of his idea of judicial restraint."
Going forward, the Supreme Court is not a place where environmentalists want to be, said Echeverria. But if they do go there, a number of their lawyers said, it is time to follow the successful playbook of industry this term and get their own Supreme Court practitioners. Latham's Mahoney argued two of industry's cases; Gibson Dunn's Olson and Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges each argued one.
Carla Herron, associate general counsel for Shell Oil Co., which hired Sullivan for its Superfund case, said, "given the significance of this case, we wanted to retain someone who is an accomplished U.S. Supreme Court advocate and an experienced 9th Circuit practitioner."
The lesson, said one environmentalist who asked for anonymity, is: "We can't be letting the line litigators litigate cases before the Supreme Court. This has become a practice where you need repeat players before the Court."
Marcia Coyle can be contacted at marcia.coyle@incisivemedia.com.
Marcia Coyle
June 29, 2009
Environmentalists suffered a stunning 0-for-5 outcome in the U.S. Supreme Court this term, their "worst term ever," according to advocates and scholars.
The defeats left the environmental community, and even its traditional antagonist in these cases — the business community — wondering where the Court is heading in this increasingly important area of the law.
Is the Roberts Court pro-business, anti-environment, pro-government — or something else? Their answers are as varied as the issues raised in the five cases that the justices decided.
What is clear is the Court's heightened interest in environmental law. The justices have decided 15 cases in just the past five terms, but in none of those terms, in fact in none of the past nine terms, have environmentalists experienced a complete shutout.
"This has never, I believe, happened before, and this includes some big wins," said Richard Lazarus, co-director of the Georgetown University Law Center Supreme Court Institute, who argued and lost one of the five decisions this term.
For environmentalists, the defeats were particularly painful because their interests had prevailed in the courts below in all five cases. The justices granted review at the behest of business, even when the solicitor general of the United States recommended denying review. "They were all victories below for environmentalists, so you wonder if the Court is making some strategic choices in the cases it picks," said Jonathan Cannon, director of the environmental and land use program at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Based on the five decisions, the trend this term is "business always wins, even when the government's interest is to the contrary," said John Hanson, a partner at Washington's Beveridge & Diamond who represents businesses in environmental litigation.
Business' remarkable record may be due in part, Lazarus suggested, to the entry this term of the private sector Supreme Court bar on behalf of business interests in environmental cases, including such well-known, repeat players as former Solicitor General Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Maureen Mahoney of Latham & Watkins. "In each of these cases, business turned not to the usual retinue of environmental legal experts, but to expert Supreme Court advocates," said Lazarus, who has studied the influence and effectiveness of those appellate practitioners.
Statisticians would say five cases are too small a sample on which to predict an enduring pro-business trend, said Virginia's Cannon, but he added, "It certainly sends a signal."
Although none of the five decisions is a landmark ruling, all raised bread-and-butter environmental issues, some with potentially huge implications for the ability of environmentalists and the government to enforce the nation's major environmental laws.
The justices ruled:
• 6-3 for electric utilities that argued that the Clean Water Act authorizes the use of cost-benefit analysis in regulating water cooling intake structures (Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper).
• 6-3 for a gold mine operator that argued that the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to issue permits for dumping dredge or fill dirt into an Alaskan lake without satisfying more stringent pollution limits for permits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation).
• 8-1 that the federal Superfund law does not mandate joint and several liability in every cost-recovery case but permits apportionment, and narrowing so-called "arranger liability" of companies that sold the product that ultimately polluted the site (Burlington Northern Railway/Shell Oil Co. v. U.S.).
• 6-3 to lift an injunction requiring the Navy to conduct an environmental impact statement and limiting its use of sonar when marine mammal activity is present (Winter v. NRDC).
• 5-4 that environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations exempting the service from notice, comment and appeal processes for fire-rehabilitation and salvage-timber sales (Summers v. Earth Island Institute).
"None of the cases individually is a blockbuster, but collectively the Court is chipping away at the very foundations of environmental law in this country," said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. John Echeverria of Vermont Law School said the Court's concern that industry is overburdened by environmental regulations is driving its decisions.
"The analysis in Coeur Alaska is expressly based on concerns about burdens on industry and the Court's reluctance to imagine Congress would have imposed those burdens," he said. "I think that's the overriding theme of the Court this term in these cases. The Court is almost on a mission. While on the one hand, it has a great deal of concern about burdens on industry, it has expressed very little concern about impacts on the environment."
Beveridge & Diamond's Hanson, as well as other industry lawyers and some environmental scholars, said the decisions, while undoubtedly pro-business, also could be seen as pro-government. With the exception of the Superfund case, in which the executive branch opposed the industry's liability argument, they noted that the Court upheld the government's view in these cases.
But pro-government is also pro-business because the government's positions in the cases were formed by the Bush administration, countered Amy Sinden of Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. "You have Bush administration positions trying to protect corporate interests by weakening environmental protections put in place by Congress," she said. "The Court's conservative majority is becoming known for supporting an expansive view of executive power and you see it playing out here.
"The good news for the Obama administration is that, in most of these cases, the Court is essentially saying the executive branch had discretion to use this narrow reading of Congress' laws," she said. "That leaves an opening for the Obama administration to read those statutes differently."
REVERSING THE 9TH CIRCUIT
Russell Frye of Washington's FryeLaw, who filed an industry-supporting amicus brief in the Entergy case, noted that four of the five cases came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is "more solicitous" of environmental groups' views. "I think that's inconsistent with the majority of the Supreme Court these days," Frye said. "I would say the Supreme Court record isn't so much a reflection of pro-industry bias as it is an environmental-neutral approach to the legal issues presented."
While disagreeing on the Court's motivation in the five cases this term, the business and environmentalists generally agree on which decisions will have the most impact.
Hanson, Frye and other industry lawyers point to the Superfund ruling that limited so-called "arranger" liability and opened up the use of apportionment of cleanup costs among responsible parties in lieu of joint and several liability.
The decision has already "triggered an explosion" of apportionment arguments, said Hanson, who handles Superfund cases across the country. "This is another opportunity, particularly in difficult economic times, to try to cut your costs."
Georgetown's Lazarus and Vermont's Echeverria said the decision undermined a "cardinal part" of the Superfund law — routine joint and several liability. "The message of that decision is liability can be and should be routinely contested," said Echeverria. "The only saving grace is the Superfund program is very mature and has accomplished a lot of its work in the last couple of decades."
Both sides also pointed to the Summers decision, in which the court narrowed the standing of environmental groups to challenge the failure of agencies to follow procedures or rules.
"That may be a substantial reduction in the scope of standing from what many of us thought it was," said industry counsel Frye. "There will be some precedent interpreting it soon. I know I'm using it now in one or two of my cases."
Environmentalists called Summers "bad" on standing. "It illustrates a profound disagreement between the ideological wings of the court about access to courts," said Kendall, adding that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. "views cutting back on standing as a central pillar of his idea of judicial restraint."
Going forward, the Supreme Court is not a place where environmentalists want to be, said Echeverria. But if they do go there, a number of their lawyers said, it is time to follow the successful playbook of industry this term and get their own Supreme Court practitioners. Latham's Mahoney argued two of industry's cases; Gibson Dunn's Olson and Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges each argued one.
Carla Herron, associate general counsel for Shell Oil Co., which hired Sullivan for its Superfund case, said, "given the significance of this case, we wanted to retain someone who is an accomplished U.S. Supreme Court advocate and an experienced 9th Circuit practitioner."
The lesson, said one environmentalist who asked for anonymity, is: "We can't be letting the line litigators litigate cases before the Supreme Court. This has become a practice where you need repeat players before the Court."
Marcia Coyle can be contacted at marcia.coyle@incisivemedia.com.
Barker: Let's turn ranchers into rangers
The fight this year in the Idaho Legislature over bighorn sheep demonstrated to me that Idaho and the West need a new vision for the future of public lands ranching in the state.
This session returned ranchers and lawmakers to "ghost dancing," a term I first heard from Luther Probst of the Sonoran Institute in the early 1990s. It's a play on the ghost dancing society among Indians in the late 1800s, which said that ghost dancing would make Indians invincible and drive the white men away.
Modern rancher ghost dancers think they can pass state laws and drive the environmentalists away. No need to change is necessary.
I have now covered the issue for a generation. I knew the old bulls who had the power to ignore the rising concerns over water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. I watched their sons and daughters take over amid growing uncertainty over environmental regulation and the consolidation of beef and lamb markets that reduced their economic options.
Some ranchers have adjusted successfully, working collaboratively with environmentalists and others to meet the water and wildlife concerns. Still others have found ways to add value to their products by exploiting the growing "buy local" movement or green marketing their shifting practices like selling "predator friendly wool."
The Western Watersheds Project and some other environmental groups' vision for the future of public lands ranching is that it will end. They see few redeeming characteristics and believe that, eventually, economics will solve their problem.
But ranchers have working on their side the continuing cultural ties that Americans have to cowboys. When public lands ranching opponents seek to kill the cowboy, so to speak, they find a lot of push back among people who may never have even been on a ranch.
The Idaho Conservation League's Linn Kincannon told me one of her supporters proposed a new idea to keep ranchers riding the range - with a new mission. Today, ranchers lease public lands, called allotments, across the West for a small monthly fee and graze their sheep and cows, she said.
Instead, livestock would be removed and ranchers paid to restore lost values. Experts at the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management would help, and the rancher would retain the allotment, shes explained.
The agencies would save money since they would no longer be planning and doing the environmental analysis for livestock grazing on the allotment. That money could be paid to the ranchers instead, to free them from uncertain weather and cattle markets.
That idea is novel, but I know that most ranchers would reject it outright. I doubt many would be willing to give up their herds, though I'm sure they might be willing to dramatically reduce their grazing on public land if the incentives were good enough.
Another option: Public land managers and policymakers could devise a new model for grazing allotments that would pay ranchers for essentially becoming rangers who patrol these lands and who create ecological services like land restoration and water quality improvement. I first heard this idea from Karl Hess Jr., a New Mexican who sought market solutions to environmental problems.
This approach wouldn't have to mean removing cattle or even sheep.
In some areas grazing itself can provide ecological services by controlling invasive species and reducing fuels in heavily degraded areas that carry wildfires into important sagebrush steppe habitat.
What I like about the idea Kincannon brought me is that it doesn't seek to eliminate or denigrate the ranching lifestyle, only to modify it for a new age. This is a good time for ranchers and others to begin having this discussion built on the collaborative efforts that are growing up across the West.
© 2009 Idaho Statesman
This session returned ranchers and lawmakers to "ghost dancing," a term I first heard from Luther Probst of the Sonoran Institute in the early 1990s. It's a play on the ghost dancing society among Indians in the late 1800s, which said that ghost dancing would make Indians invincible and drive the white men away.
Modern rancher ghost dancers think they can pass state laws and drive the environmentalists away. No need to change is necessary.
I have now covered the issue for a generation. I knew the old bulls who had the power to ignore the rising concerns over water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. I watched their sons and daughters take over amid growing uncertainty over environmental regulation and the consolidation of beef and lamb markets that reduced their economic options.
Some ranchers have adjusted successfully, working collaboratively with environmentalists and others to meet the water and wildlife concerns. Still others have found ways to add value to their products by exploiting the growing "buy local" movement or green marketing their shifting practices like selling "predator friendly wool."
The Western Watersheds Project and some other environmental groups' vision for the future of public lands ranching is that it will end. They see few redeeming characteristics and believe that, eventually, economics will solve their problem.
But ranchers have working on their side the continuing cultural ties that Americans have to cowboys. When public lands ranching opponents seek to kill the cowboy, so to speak, they find a lot of push back among people who may never have even been on a ranch.
The Idaho Conservation League's Linn Kincannon told me one of her supporters proposed a new idea to keep ranchers riding the range - with a new mission. Today, ranchers lease public lands, called allotments, across the West for a small monthly fee and graze their sheep and cows, she said.
Instead, livestock would be removed and ranchers paid to restore lost values. Experts at the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management would help, and the rancher would retain the allotment, shes explained.
The agencies would save money since they would no longer be planning and doing the environmental analysis for livestock grazing on the allotment. That money could be paid to the ranchers instead, to free them from uncertain weather and cattle markets.
That idea is novel, but I know that most ranchers would reject it outright. I doubt many would be willing to give up their herds, though I'm sure they might be willing to dramatically reduce their grazing on public land if the incentives were good enough.
Another option: Public land managers and policymakers could devise a new model for grazing allotments that would pay ranchers for essentially becoming rangers who patrol these lands and who create ecological services like land restoration and water quality improvement. I first heard this idea from Karl Hess Jr., a New Mexican who sought market solutions to environmental problems.
This approach wouldn't have to mean removing cattle or even sheep.
In some areas grazing itself can provide ecological services by controlling invasive species and reducing fuels in heavily degraded areas that carry wildfires into important sagebrush steppe habitat.
What I like about the idea Kincannon brought me is that it doesn't seek to eliminate or denigrate the ranching lifestyle, only to modify it for a new age. This is a good time for ranchers and others to begin having this discussion built on the collaborative efforts that are growing up across the West.
© 2009 Idaho Statesman
Monday, June 22, 2009
Conservation wave builds in the West
Craning his neck to see over the small airplane's instrument panel, Ron Gardiner points out the path Spanish explorers had to take around the deep crevasse that cuts through the center of northern New Mexico.
To the west of the famous Rio Grande gorge and its towering basalt cliffs is a broad plateau of sagebrush, native grass and remnants of the ancient volcanoes that helped form this rugged landscape. Herds of elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and golden eagles call it home.
"This is one of the last undeveloped tracts in the Southwest," said Gardiner, a water policy consultant who is among those who have been spearheading the decades-old effort to protect the area.
The push to set aside nearly 370 square miles as the El Rio Grande del Norte National Conservation Area is part of a new wave of congressional proposals aimed at protecting more than 34 million acres of public land across the West.
However, as conservationists continue with their crusade, some people who make a living off the land are digging in to oppose the effort.
Critics are concerned that domestic energy production and traditions like ranching and firewood and pinon nut gathering will be limited as more tracts of public land are designated as conservation areas or wilderness.
Conservationists say they are trying to keep momentum going following the enactment last spring of a massive public lands bill that added more than 2 million acres to the nation's inventory of wilderness and other protected lands.
Other legislation has been introduced to designate areas in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and Utah as wilderness and wild and scenic rivers.
"I'm aware of campaigns in just about every western state to designate new wilderness areas," said Paul Spitler, associate director of The Wilderness Society's national wilderness campaigns.
The El Rio Grande del Norte legislation — which has the backing of the Obama administration — would permit grazing, hunting and fishing and the gathering of firewood and pinon nuts. But no new roads would be allowed, and the land management agencies that oversee the area would not be able to lease or sell any parcels.
The legislation also would set aside two parcels within the conservation area as wilderness — one encompassing the 10,093-foot Ute Mountain and the other along the Rio San Antonio.
Some cattle ranchers are concerned the proposal would limit access to public land where they have grazed cattle for years. In wilderness, vehicles are not allowed.
"Taking care of improvements, developing water, having access to be able to maintain fences and other things sometimes become very difficult," said Gerald Chacon, a Rio Arriba County rancher and member of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association board of directors.
"What it essentially does is it's just sort of a way of squeezing you out of business," he said.
But Gardiner, sportsmen and other supporters argue that Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., worked hard to address the concerns of ranchers and local residents.
Greg McReynolds, a public lands coordinator for the nonprofit sportsmen group Trout Unlimited, doesn't consider the bill controversial.
"We're not trying to take anything away, we're not trying to change anything," he said. "We're just trying to protect it like it is."
The area is relatively untouched because of its rugged character, Gardiner said. The gorge and the lack of water on the plateau kept Spanish explorers and later pioneers from moving across the area.
"This has always been a land to circumvent," he said.
The area is an important winter range for elk, deer and antelope. It's also part of a migratory flyway and home to several pairs of eagles. One nest along the gorge north of the Taos bridge stands several feet tall and is about 20 years old.
The argument for protecting El Rio Grande del Norte is similar to the cases being made for the Wild Rogue River in southern Oregon and millions of acres in Utah's red rock country. Conservation groups are also pursuing protection proposals for both.
Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said some areas deserve to be protected. Still, he believes conservationists are making an effort to "grab more land and keep it out of bounds."
"If you're in a western state and you're not concerned about that, then you haven't been following what's going on," he said.
El Rio Grande del Norte is east of the San Juan Basin, one of the largest natural gas fields in the nation, and south of several exploratory wells in Colorado.
However, supporters of the proposed legislation said the threat is more about development along the gorge than drilling.
"People love the canyon and there are opportunities to build right up to the rim," Gardiner said.
Supporters also say the designation could be a tourist boon for the nearby communities of Questa, Taos and Red River. In 2007, more than 300,000 people visited the Rio Grande gorge and 33,000 paid New Mexico rafting outfitters for guided trips along the river.
"There is an intrinsic value to renewable recreation resources and this is a prime example of how a landscape provides for a community and an economy and brings something really valuable to the state," McReynolds said.
To the west of the famous Rio Grande gorge and its towering basalt cliffs is a broad plateau of sagebrush, native grass and remnants of the ancient volcanoes that helped form this rugged landscape. Herds of elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and golden eagles call it home.
"This is one of the last undeveloped tracts in the Southwest," said Gardiner, a water policy consultant who is among those who have been spearheading the decades-old effort to protect the area.
The push to set aside nearly 370 square miles as the El Rio Grande del Norte National Conservation Area is part of a new wave of congressional proposals aimed at protecting more than 34 million acres of public land across the West.
However, as conservationists continue with their crusade, some people who make a living off the land are digging in to oppose the effort.
Critics are concerned that domestic energy production and traditions like ranching and firewood and pinon nut gathering will be limited as more tracts of public land are designated as conservation areas or wilderness.
Conservationists say they are trying to keep momentum going following the enactment last spring of a massive public lands bill that added more than 2 million acres to the nation's inventory of wilderness and other protected lands.
Other legislation has been introduced to designate areas in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and Utah as wilderness and wild and scenic rivers.
"I'm aware of campaigns in just about every western state to designate new wilderness areas," said Paul Spitler, associate director of The Wilderness Society's national wilderness campaigns.
The El Rio Grande del Norte legislation — which has the backing of the Obama administration — would permit grazing, hunting and fishing and the gathering of firewood and pinon nuts. But no new roads would be allowed, and the land management agencies that oversee the area would not be able to lease or sell any parcels.
The legislation also would set aside two parcels within the conservation area as wilderness — one encompassing the 10,093-foot Ute Mountain and the other along the Rio San Antonio.
Some cattle ranchers are concerned the proposal would limit access to public land where they have grazed cattle for years. In wilderness, vehicles are not allowed.
"Taking care of improvements, developing water, having access to be able to maintain fences and other things sometimes become very difficult," said Gerald Chacon, a Rio Arriba County rancher and member of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association board of directors.
"What it essentially does is it's just sort of a way of squeezing you out of business," he said.
But Gardiner, sportsmen and other supporters argue that Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., worked hard to address the concerns of ranchers and local residents.
Greg McReynolds, a public lands coordinator for the nonprofit sportsmen group Trout Unlimited, doesn't consider the bill controversial.
"We're not trying to take anything away, we're not trying to change anything," he said. "We're just trying to protect it like it is."
The area is relatively untouched because of its rugged character, Gardiner said. The gorge and the lack of water on the plateau kept Spanish explorers and later pioneers from moving across the area.
"This has always been a land to circumvent," he said.
The area is an important winter range for elk, deer and antelope. It's also part of a migratory flyway and home to several pairs of eagles. One nest along the gorge north of the Taos bridge stands several feet tall and is about 20 years old.
The argument for protecting El Rio Grande del Norte is similar to the cases being made for the Wild Rogue River in southern Oregon and millions of acres in Utah's red rock country. Conservation groups are also pursuing protection proposals for both.
Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said some areas deserve to be protected. Still, he believes conservationists are making an effort to "grab more land and keep it out of bounds."
"If you're in a western state and you're not concerned about that, then you haven't been following what's going on," he said.
El Rio Grande del Norte is east of the San Juan Basin, one of the largest natural gas fields in the nation, and south of several exploratory wells in Colorado.
However, supporters of the proposed legislation said the threat is more about development along the gorge than drilling.
"People love the canyon and there are opportunities to build right up to the rim," Gardiner said.
Supporters also say the designation could be a tourist boon for the nearby communities of Questa, Taos and Red River. In 2007, more than 300,000 people visited the Rio Grande gorge and 33,000 paid New Mexico rafting outfitters for guided trips along the river.
"There is an intrinsic value to renewable recreation resources and this is a prime example of how a landscape provides for a community and an economy and brings something really valuable to the state," McReynolds said.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
NM ranchers worry that sick cows could cross to US
Longtime New Mexico cattle rancher Judy Keeler is keenly aware of how tough it is to raise livestock in the dusty desert near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Drought, intense heat, security and illegal immigrants who cut down ranchers fences and drink water meant for livestock are constant concerns.
But Keeler and fellow ranchers now have another worry.
The border fence, installed by the Department of Homeland Security to keep cars and people from crossing into the United States illegally, isn't so good at blocking cattle in some places. The new fence replaced previous livestock fences at some points, and some stretches are so low that cows can step right over it.
And because regulations in Mexico are less strict, Mexican herds are more likely to have bovine tuberculosis and other communicable diseases.
"It's kind of a hodgepodge of fencing," said Keeler, president of the Hidalgo County Cattle Grower's Association in Hachita in southwest New Mexico. "The inconsistencies along the border is what I'm trying to get them to correct."
Some of the Mexican border states don't have the bovine TB-free disease status enjoyed by most of the U.S. border states, said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association in Albuquerque, N.M.
That could lead to disease spreading to U.S. cattle, threatening the nation's beef industry, although no infections blamed on Mexican cattle have been reported recently.
"It's a more lower level threat, but it only takes one cow to bring down the economy of the whole nation," said Jeff Witte, director of agriculture biosecurity at the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.
Agriculture officials in the border states of California and Arizona say they haven't heard complaints from ranchers on the issue of border fencing and livestock protection.
In Texas, a high fence along the border is needed to control the flow of wildlife and cattle from Mexico, said Susan Durham with the South Texans' Property Rights Association in Falfurrias, Texas. Disease concerns there include Cattle Fever Tick, a parasite eradicated from the United States 65 years ago that can transmit disease to cattle.
In New Mexico, complaints focus on differing heights and styles of fence.
While most people envision a 20-foot-tall fence all along New Mexico's border, Keeler said the fence at some points - where the barrier is meant to stop vehicles, not people on foot or cows - is only 3 feet high.
Some types of fence have high, closely placed steel beams, while others are a design of thick post and rail fencing.
Then there's what's called a Normandy barrier, where X-shaped steel beams have a middle rail to link the structures to stop vehicle traffic.
The type of fence for a given area was chosen based on topography, needs and cost, said Doug Mosier, spokesman for the Border Patrol's El Paso, Texas, sector, which includes 128 miles of fence in New Mexico and portions of two West Texas counties under its jurisdiction.
"Farmers and ranchers are happy to see the infrastructure in place," Mosier said. "This is the first major step that the U.S. government has taken to assess needs along the U.S. border, and there will be more to come."
Mosier said there was no fencing in some areas when they started the project last year, and some areas and fences that did exist were showing wear.
Barbed wire fences were replaced with better fences when the new barrier was installed, said Terry Kranz, assistant patrol agent in charge at the Border Patrol's Lordsburg station.
Witte said agencies and ranchers need to communicate to prevent disease.
First detector training courses, which bring together ranchers and law enforcement agencies, are important for ranchers dealing with livestock diseases, he said. The courses teach officers to look for signs of cattle illness, such as coughing and excessive mucus, and immediately contact area veterinarians.
"It was a way to get a number of eyes and ears out across the state and recognizing when there might be a disease issue," Witte said.
Ranchers, he said, "have a tremendous burden on their shoulders because they are in the region. They are on the forefront of our agricultural security."
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has formed a Border Security Task Force to identify border issues, and has held meetings about the border fence with ranchers and land agencies for years. At a recent meeting, ranchers decided team up with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to present their priorities to government agencies.
Joe Johnson, whose New Mexico ranch - near Columbus in Luna County - shares its southern border with Mexico, said he was consulted on his fence needs before a Normandy barrier was installed on portions of his ranch.
The barrier is "still under the test" to see if will prevent Mexican cattle from crossing, he said.
"In most ways we got what we asked for," Johnson said. "Now we just have to wait and see how well it will be effective."
Drought, intense heat, security and illegal immigrants who cut down ranchers fences and drink water meant for livestock are constant concerns.
But Keeler and fellow ranchers now have another worry.
The border fence, installed by the Department of Homeland Security to keep cars and people from crossing into the United States illegally, isn't so good at blocking cattle in some places. The new fence replaced previous livestock fences at some points, and some stretches are so low that cows can step right over it.
And because regulations in Mexico are less strict, Mexican herds are more likely to have bovine tuberculosis and other communicable diseases.
"It's kind of a hodgepodge of fencing," said Keeler, president of the Hidalgo County Cattle Grower's Association in Hachita in southwest New Mexico. "The inconsistencies along the border is what I'm trying to get them to correct."
Some of the Mexican border states don't have the bovine TB-free disease status enjoyed by most of the U.S. border states, said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association in Albuquerque, N.M.
That could lead to disease spreading to U.S. cattle, threatening the nation's beef industry, although no infections blamed on Mexican cattle have been reported recently.
"It's a more lower level threat, but it only takes one cow to bring down the economy of the whole nation," said Jeff Witte, director of agriculture biosecurity at the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.
Agriculture officials in the border states of California and Arizona say they haven't heard complaints from ranchers on the issue of border fencing and livestock protection.
In Texas, a high fence along the border is needed to control the flow of wildlife and cattle from Mexico, said Susan Durham with the South Texans' Property Rights Association in Falfurrias, Texas. Disease concerns there include Cattle Fever Tick, a parasite eradicated from the United States 65 years ago that can transmit disease to cattle.
In New Mexico, complaints focus on differing heights and styles of fence.
While most people envision a 20-foot-tall fence all along New Mexico's border, Keeler said the fence at some points - where the barrier is meant to stop vehicles, not people on foot or cows - is only 3 feet high.
Some types of fence have high, closely placed steel beams, while others are a design of thick post and rail fencing.
Then there's what's called a Normandy barrier, where X-shaped steel beams have a middle rail to link the structures to stop vehicle traffic.
The type of fence for a given area was chosen based on topography, needs and cost, said Doug Mosier, spokesman for the Border Patrol's El Paso, Texas, sector, which includes 128 miles of fence in New Mexico and portions of two West Texas counties under its jurisdiction.
"Farmers and ranchers are happy to see the infrastructure in place," Mosier said. "This is the first major step that the U.S. government has taken to assess needs along the U.S. border, and there will be more to come."
Mosier said there was no fencing in some areas when they started the project last year, and some areas and fences that did exist were showing wear.
Barbed wire fences were replaced with better fences when the new barrier was installed, said Terry Kranz, assistant patrol agent in charge at the Border Patrol's Lordsburg station.
Witte said agencies and ranchers need to communicate to prevent disease.
First detector training courses, which bring together ranchers and law enforcement agencies, are important for ranchers dealing with livestock diseases, he said. The courses teach officers to look for signs of cattle illness, such as coughing and excessive mucus, and immediately contact area veterinarians.
"It was a way to get a number of eyes and ears out across the state and recognizing when there might be a disease issue," Witte said.
Ranchers, he said, "have a tremendous burden on their shoulders because they are in the region. They are on the forefront of our agricultural security."
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has formed a Border Security Task Force to identify border issues, and has held meetings about the border fence with ranchers and land agencies for years. At a recent meeting, ranchers decided team up with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to present their priorities to government agencies.
Joe Johnson, whose New Mexico ranch - near Columbus in Luna County - shares its southern border with Mexico, said he was consulted on his fence needs before a Normandy barrier was installed on portions of his ranch.
The barrier is "still under the test" to see if will prevent Mexican cattle from crossing, he said.
"In most ways we got what we asked for," Johnson said. "Now we just have to wait and see how well it will be effective."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
America's Wildlife Heritage Act introduced in House of Representatives
Bill seeks to ensure healthy wildlife populations on Forest Service, BLM lands
WASHINGTON - Representatives Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) and Walter Jones (R-NC) introduced legislation today aimed at sustaining healthy populations of fish, wildlife and plants on federal public lands - setting off a round of applause from sportsmen's organizations, conservation groups and outdoor enthusiasts across the country.
"The America's Wildlife Heritage Act is a commonsense bill that will bring the management of our federal public lands into the 21st century," said Michael Francis, the national forest program director at The Wilderness Society. "For too long, our national forests and public lands have been managed without adequately considering the health of the fish, wildlife and plants found on those lands or the people whose livelihoods and traditions depend on them."
The America's Wildlife Heritage Act, supported by the Your Lands, Your Wildlife campaign, provides the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with clear objectives and science-based tools to sustain and monitor healthy populations of fish and wildlife and their habitat on national forests, grasslands and BLM lands.
"It's encouraging to see Congressmen Kind and Jones take a balanced approach to sustaining wildlife on our public lands," said Dr. Bruce Stein, associate director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming at the National Wildlife Federation. "Their proposal is a good reminder that these lands can be used for multiple purposes without jeopardizing fish and wildlife habitat."
America's Wildlife Heritage Act will give the Forest Service and BLM new directives to protect the fish and wildlife found on these lands, which are threatened by increasing pressure for resource development, energy production and global warming. The act also enhances coordination between federal and state agencies to achieve their objectives, effectively manage natural resources, and account for fish and wildlife populations that cross agency boundaries.
"As stewards of the people's lands, one of the most important responsibilities of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management is to ensure that America's fish and wildlife continue to thrive," said Peter Nelson, Defenders of Wildlife's federal lands program director. "America's Wildlife Heritage Act gives land managers the tools they need to accomplish this fundamental stewardship mission."
Forest Service and BLM lands hold some of the last remaining intact wildlife corridors for big game species, provide habitat for countless other species, both imperiled and common, and protect some 3,400 public water supplies. But they are also under increasing pressure from rapid, poorly planned development and the dramatic environmental changes associated with global warming.
"It's time to restore science and public trust to the management of our Forest Service and BLM lands," said Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club's director of lands protection. "Currently, federal law mandates that the land be managed for multiple uses. It is time that we recognized that we can only achieve this if the land is healthy and managed to produce sustainable populations of fish, wildlife and plants."
"As federal land managers are faced with the unprecedented challenge of rapidly changing habitats brought on by global warming, America's Wildlife Heritage Act will provide them with vital information on the health and distribution of fish and wildlife populations treasured by all Americans," said Marty Hayden, vice president for policy and legislation at Earthjustice.
America's Wildlife Heritage Act
Bill Summary of the America's Wildlife Heritage Act
WASHINGTON - Representatives Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) and Walter Jones (R-NC) introduced legislation today aimed at sustaining healthy populations of fish, wildlife and plants on federal public lands - setting off a round of applause from sportsmen's organizations, conservation groups and outdoor enthusiasts across the country.
"The America's Wildlife Heritage Act is a commonsense bill that will bring the management of our federal public lands into the 21st century," said Michael Francis, the national forest program director at The Wilderness Society. "For too long, our national forests and public lands have been managed without adequately considering the health of the fish, wildlife and plants found on those lands or the people whose livelihoods and traditions depend on them."
The America's Wildlife Heritage Act, supported by the Your Lands, Your Wildlife campaign, provides the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with clear objectives and science-based tools to sustain and monitor healthy populations of fish and wildlife and their habitat on national forests, grasslands and BLM lands.
"It's encouraging to see Congressmen Kind and Jones take a balanced approach to sustaining wildlife on our public lands," said Dr. Bruce Stein, associate director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming at the National Wildlife Federation. "Their proposal is a good reminder that these lands can be used for multiple purposes without jeopardizing fish and wildlife habitat."
America's Wildlife Heritage Act will give the Forest Service and BLM new directives to protect the fish and wildlife found on these lands, which are threatened by increasing pressure for resource development, energy production and global warming. The act also enhances coordination between federal and state agencies to achieve their objectives, effectively manage natural resources, and account for fish and wildlife populations that cross agency boundaries.
"As stewards of the people's lands, one of the most important responsibilities of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management is to ensure that America's fish and wildlife continue to thrive," said Peter Nelson, Defenders of Wildlife's federal lands program director. "America's Wildlife Heritage Act gives land managers the tools they need to accomplish this fundamental stewardship mission."
Forest Service and BLM lands hold some of the last remaining intact wildlife corridors for big game species, provide habitat for countless other species, both imperiled and common, and protect some 3,400 public water supplies. But they are also under increasing pressure from rapid, poorly planned development and the dramatic environmental changes associated with global warming.
"It's time to restore science and public trust to the management of our Forest Service and BLM lands," said Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club's director of lands protection. "Currently, federal law mandates that the land be managed for multiple uses. It is time that we recognized that we can only achieve this if the land is healthy and managed to produce sustainable populations of fish, wildlife and plants."
"As federal land managers are faced with the unprecedented challenge of rapidly changing habitats brought on by global warming, America's Wildlife Heritage Act will provide them with vital information on the health and distribution of fish and wildlife populations treasured by all Americans," said Marty Hayden, vice president for policy and legislation at Earthjustice.
America's Wildlife Heritage Act
Bill Summary of the America's Wildlife Heritage Act
Forest Service names new chief
Regional Forester Tom Tidwell was named chief of the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday, making him the third consecutive agency leader to come from the Missoula regional headquarters.
A 32-year veteran of the Forest Service, Tidwell earned local praise for his ability to get people from opposing sides to work together.
“Of all the folks I've worked with in my career, he's one of those rare individuals who has in his bones the understanding of how important it is to collaborate with affected publics,” said Dale Harris, director of the Great Burn Study Group and co-chairman of the Montana Forest Restoration Committee. “It might be the nation's gain, but I think it's our loss. He made a mark in the short time he was here.”
Tidwell replaces Gail Kimbell, who was the Northern Region supervisor in Missoula before taking over the Forest Service in 2007. She in turn replaced Dale Bosworth, who held the top job for six years. Bosworth was regional supervisor from 1997 to 2001.
The Forest Service's Northern Region commands 25 million acres in Montana, Idaho and North Dakota. That includes 12 national forests and four national grasslands.
Before coming to Missoula, Tidwell worked in eight other national forests in three regions. His positions included district ranger, forest supervisor and legislative affairs specialist in Washington, D.C. He was forest supervisor in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. And he has 19 years of firefighting experience, from ground crew to agency administrator.
“You have to have your act together to have success as a regional forester,” said Bosworth, who returned to Missoula after retirement. “This is the last of the wildlands in the lower 48 states. It's an excellent place to get a wide variety of experiences.”
In particular, Bosworth said it's a training ground for bringing together the independent and conflicting interests of the Northern Rockies. This area has led the nation in getting those groups to work together.
“I think the public was growing weary of the fighting, and Tom's been there to support that collaboration and help lead it,” Bosworth said. This administration is interested in people who can collaborate, and that makes Tom a natural.”
One of those opponents has been Mike Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
“He's always been professional and polite to deal with, but in end we've ended up suing him regularly - at least 20 times since he's been regional forester,” Garrity said of Tidwell. “Still, he's had the most open office, and he doesn't take disagreements personally. I've appreciated that.”
Garrity said filling the Forest Service chief job before naming someone as undersecretary of agriculture indicated the Obama administration is not moving far from the Bush administration's policies for forest management. And those policies emphasize timber cutting over wildlife habitat recovery and restoration, Garrity said.
The chief of the Forest Service reports to the agriculture undersecretary. In the Bush administration, Mark Rey held that job. Mississippian Homer Lee Wilkes was nominated for the post, but withdrew June 10.
Montana Wood Products Association board President Chuck Roady also found it curious that an undersecretary wasn't in place before the Forest Service chief was named. But he was pleased Tidwell got the tap.
“He's going to be real familiar with the forests in Region 1,” said Roady, who is also general manager of F.W. Stoltz Lumber Co. in Columbia Falls. “We're dealing with forest biomass, trying to reduce the fuel loading and bug infestation, and we need to use that biomass before it's no good. He's well aware of that. His appointment keeps things on a fairly steady course. He reported to Gail (Kimbell), and they worked together really well. He's somebody we'd look forward to working with.”
Tidwell was instrumental in supporting the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group, a collaboration of mill owners, conservation groups, outfitters and recreation clubs to break down barriers to progress on forest projects. Bob Ekey, communications director for the Wilderness Society in Bozeman and co-chair of the working group, called Tidwell's financial and personnel support essential.
“Tidwell understands the American public's vision for a national forest has been changing,” Ekey said. “People expect supplies of clean water, world-class wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities in their forests.”
Fellow working group co-chair Gordy Sanders of Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake added it was reassuring to see the Montana connections preserved in Washington, D.C.
“Maybe it's the talented staff they've got in the regional office and across the region that helps prepare them,” Sanders said. “Tom going to Washington brings more of Region 1 to the national forest lands across the country.”
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.
A 32-year veteran of the Forest Service, Tidwell earned local praise for his ability to get people from opposing sides to work together.
“Of all the folks I've worked with in my career, he's one of those rare individuals who has in his bones the understanding of how important it is to collaborate with affected publics,” said Dale Harris, director of the Great Burn Study Group and co-chairman of the Montana Forest Restoration Committee. “It might be the nation's gain, but I think it's our loss. He made a mark in the short time he was here.”
Tidwell replaces Gail Kimbell, who was the Northern Region supervisor in Missoula before taking over the Forest Service in 2007. She in turn replaced Dale Bosworth, who held the top job for six years. Bosworth was regional supervisor from 1997 to 2001.
The Forest Service's Northern Region commands 25 million acres in Montana, Idaho and North Dakota. That includes 12 national forests and four national grasslands.
Before coming to Missoula, Tidwell worked in eight other national forests in three regions. His positions included district ranger, forest supervisor and legislative affairs specialist in Washington, D.C. He was forest supervisor in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. And he has 19 years of firefighting experience, from ground crew to agency administrator.
“You have to have your act together to have success as a regional forester,” said Bosworth, who returned to Missoula after retirement. “This is the last of the wildlands in the lower 48 states. It's an excellent place to get a wide variety of experiences.”
In particular, Bosworth said it's a training ground for bringing together the independent and conflicting interests of the Northern Rockies. This area has led the nation in getting those groups to work together.
“I think the public was growing weary of the fighting, and Tom's been there to support that collaboration and help lead it,” Bosworth said. This administration is interested in people who can collaborate, and that makes Tom a natural.”
One of those opponents has been Mike Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
“He's always been professional and polite to deal with, but in end we've ended up suing him regularly - at least 20 times since he's been regional forester,” Garrity said of Tidwell. “Still, he's had the most open office, and he doesn't take disagreements personally. I've appreciated that.”
Garrity said filling the Forest Service chief job before naming someone as undersecretary of agriculture indicated the Obama administration is not moving far from the Bush administration's policies for forest management. And those policies emphasize timber cutting over wildlife habitat recovery and restoration, Garrity said.
The chief of the Forest Service reports to the agriculture undersecretary. In the Bush administration, Mark Rey held that job. Mississippian Homer Lee Wilkes was nominated for the post, but withdrew June 10.
Montana Wood Products Association board President Chuck Roady also found it curious that an undersecretary wasn't in place before the Forest Service chief was named. But he was pleased Tidwell got the tap.
“He's going to be real familiar with the forests in Region 1,” said Roady, who is also general manager of F.W. Stoltz Lumber Co. in Columbia Falls. “We're dealing with forest biomass, trying to reduce the fuel loading and bug infestation, and we need to use that biomass before it's no good. He's well aware of that. His appointment keeps things on a fairly steady course. He reported to Gail (Kimbell), and they worked together really well. He's somebody we'd look forward to working with.”
Tidwell was instrumental in supporting the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group, a collaboration of mill owners, conservation groups, outfitters and recreation clubs to break down barriers to progress on forest projects. Bob Ekey, communications director for the Wilderness Society in Bozeman and co-chair of the working group, called Tidwell's financial and personnel support essential.
“Tidwell understands the American public's vision for a national forest has been changing,” Ekey said. “People expect supplies of clean water, world-class wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities in their forests.”
Fellow working group co-chair Gordy Sanders of Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake added it was reassuring to see the Montana connections preserved in Washington, D.C.
“Maybe it's the talented staff they've got in the regional office and across the region that helps prepare them,” Sanders said. “Tom going to Washington brings more of Region 1 to the national forest lands across the country.”
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Judge: Cattle can return to Malheur forest grazing sites
Ranchers will be able to turn out cattle on seven allotments in Oregon's Malheur National Forest as part of a ruling issued Monday, June 15, by a federal judge in Portland.
U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty ruled that grazing will be allowed in the allotments as long as the U.S. Forest Service follows a strict regimen of monitoring, fencing and cattle management.
The ruling lifts a ban on grazing in two allotments, Murderers Creek and Lower Middle Fork, issued by Haggerty in May 2008.
Ranchers who rely on the national forest for grazing were expected to turn out their cattle on Friday, June 19.
Environmentalist groups involved in the lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service had requested that Haggerty completely prohibit cattle grazing in eight allotments in the national forest.
The U.S. Forest Service requested limited grazing on all but the Long Creek allotment, which the agency agreed to totally rest this year.
In his ruling, Haggerty said the agency had demonstrated that its grazing management plans for 2009 would not jeopardize threatened steelhead in the area.
Haggerty said he wasn't confident that the U.S. Forest Service would be able to fully enforce the plan.
"Due to the Forest Service's repeated failures to carry out planned mitigation and monitoring measures on the (Malheur National Forest), this court finds it prudent to enter an order ensuring the implementation of the Forest Service's proposals," according to the ruling.
If an allotment is found to be out of compliance with plans aimed at protecting threatened steelhead - for example, if cattle alter stream banks beyond the allowable level - then grazing in the affected area must stop for the rest of the year.
"If adequate mitigation and monitoring do not occur, the court may end the grazing season early with a full injunction," Haggerty said the ruling.
The U.S. Forest Service will need to show its compliance with grazing management plans in a report by July 20, and in another report at the end of the season.
Haggerty noted that the plaintiffs - Oregon Natural Desert Association, Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project - had provided some evidence that grazing would harm steelhead.
Haggerty said that statements made by one of their main witnesses, consultant Christopher Christie, "have been shown to be less than fully trustworthy."
Testimony from expert witnesses summoned by the U.S. Forest Service, on the other hand, "has established that the grazing proposals for 2009, if properly executed, will adequately protect riparian habitat."
During a hearing Friday, June 12, fish and stream experts countered allegations that grazing causes permanent damage to threatened steelhead habitat.
"The conditions being maintained within this space have stayed the same or are improving," said Brett Roper, national aquatic monitoring program leader for the U.S. Forest Service.
The portions of stream that have been adversely affected by cattle comprise a very small portion of the steelhead's total habitat, so it's difficult to see how these sites would cause irreparable harm to the species, Roper said.
"Not only am I not worried about these sites, I'm not worried about a larger subset of sites used by fish," he said. "If these areas don't cause a lot of concern, then other areas don't cause a lot of concern, either."
U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty ruled that grazing will be allowed in the allotments as long as the U.S. Forest Service follows a strict regimen of monitoring, fencing and cattle management.
The ruling lifts a ban on grazing in two allotments, Murderers Creek and Lower Middle Fork, issued by Haggerty in May 2008.
Ranchers who rely on the national forest for grazing were expected to turn out their cattle on Friday, June 19.
Environmentalist groups involved in the lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service had requested that Haggerty completely prohibit cattle grazing in eight allotments in the national forest.
The U.S. Forest Service requested limited grazing on all but the Long Creek allotment, which the agency agreed to totally rest this year.
In his ruling, Haggerty said the agency had demonstrated that its grazing management plans for 2009 would not jeopardize threatened steelhead in the area.
Haggerty said he wasn't confident that the U.S. Forest Service would be able to fully enforce the plan.
"Due to the Forest Service's repeated failures to carry out planned mitigation and monitoring measures on the (Malheur National Forest), this court finds it prudent to enter an order ensuring the implementation of the Forest Service's proposals," according to the ruling.
If an allotment is found to be out of compliance with plans aimed at protecting threatened steelhead - for example, if cattle alter stream banks beyond the allowable level - then grazing in the affected area must stop for the rest of the year.
"If adequate mitigation and monitoring do not occur, the court may end the grazing season early with a full injunction," Haggerty said the ruling.
The U.S. Forest Service will need to show its compliance with grazing management plans in a report by July 20, and in another report at the end of the season.
Haggerty noted that the plaintiffs - Oregon Natural Desert Association, Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project - had provided some evidence that grazing would harm steelhead.
Haggerty said that statements made by one of their main witnesses, consultant Christopher Christie, "have been shown to be less than fully trustworthy."
Testimony from expert witnesses summoned by the U.S. Forest Service, on the other hand, "has established that the grazing proposals for 2009, if properly executed, will adequately protect riparian habitat."
During a hearing Friday, June 12, fish and stream experts countered allegations that grazing causes permanent damage to threatened steelhead habitat.
"The conditions being maintained within this space have stayed the same or are improving," said Brett Roper, national aquatic monitoring program leader for the U.S. Forest Service.
The portions of stream that have been adversely affected by cattle comprise a very small portion of the steelhead's total habitat, so it's difficult to see how these sites would cause irreparable harm to the species, Roper said.
"Not only am I not worried about these sites, I'm not worried about a larger subset of sites used by fish," he said. "If these areas don't cause a lot of concern, then other areas don't cause a lot of concern, either."
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Idaho Court Grazing Decision Adds To Economic Woes, Fails To See Whole Picture
MORELAND, Idaho – In an ongoing effort to eliminate grazing and other uses of public lands, Western Watersheds Project (WWP) challenged 18 Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) prepared by 18 separate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices in six different Western states. The BLM and stakeholders immediately filed a motion to dismiss parts of the complaint and asked that the case be handled separately in U.S. Courts in each of the affected states, rather than as one large lawsuit. In early May, Judge B. Lynn Winmill, Chief U.S. District Judge, ordered that the motion be granted in part and denied in part in a decision that ultimately unfairly favors the original complaint.
“The judge looked at this as a decision simply about sage grouse and failed to see the whole picture, that this is a range resource and habitat issue,” said Dan Gralian, President of the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association. “As ranchers, we work with agencies like the BLM to manage our public lands responsibly. Sweeping attacks and generalizations like this case misuse stakeholders’ time, take our agency folks away from their real jobs of managing the land and wastes taxpayers’ money.”
“You simply can’t paint 25 million acres of the Western United States with the same broad brush as Judge Winmill has in this case,” said John O’Keeffe, Chair of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association Public Lands Committee. Making the BLM waste federal resources on paperwork, legal fees and defending their efforts to protect threatened species ultimately does not protect the environment, sage grouse or rangelands.”
Rangeland resource management and associated environmental issues permeate nearly every aspect of life in the West. Various interconnected ecosystems make each area under the lawsuit intrinsically different. Rangelands provide critical wildlife habitat, water resources, oil, gas, mineral reserves, and recreational opportunities. Local economies are closely associated with the use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources as well as rural and wildland resources for tourists. Individual local ecosystems and resources need to be considered as they were when the BLM developed the different Resource Management Plans that govern the different BLM districts.
“Instead of wasting resources on blanket lawsuits, the Western Legacy Alliance and its members advocate for science-based options for resolving environmental and natural resource management issues and incorporating an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving and conflict resolution,” said John McLain, a resource and rangeland specialist and member of WLA.
By filing complaints against 18 individual plans, WWP has demonstrated their ignorance of the uniqueness and regional diversity inherent to the states and areas in question, something an “environmentalist” organization should be ashamed of. Driven by the absence of balanced and objective information, WWP is furthering rangeland resource conflicts that will ultimately ruin the local economies and way of life inherent to the West.
Livestock production in many of these states relies on maintaining healthy native rangelands. The members of the Western Legacy Alliance believe that true conservation groups, industry and all other interests that use public lands can work together to find sustainable solutions that best meet the needs of people and the environment. Misrepresentation and extremist activity on anyone’s part hinder the progress that has been made and ultimately make it more difficult to preserve the natural, cultural and economic facets of the American West.
“The judge looked at this as a decision simply about sage grouse and failed to see the whole picture, that this is a range resource and habitat issue,” said Dan Gralian, President of the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association. “As ranchers, we work with agencies like the BLM to manage our public lands responsibly. Sweeping attacks and generalizations like this case misuse stakeholders’ time, take our agency folks away from their real jobs of managing the land and wastes taxpayers’ money.”
“You simply can’t paint 25 million acres of the Western United States with the same broad brush as Judge Winmill has in this case,” said John O’Keeffe, Chair of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association Public Lands Committee. Making the BLM waste federal resources on paperwork, legal fees and defending their efforts to protect threatened species ultimately does not protect the environment, sage grouse or rangelands.”
Rangeland resource management and associated environmental issues permeate nearly every aspect of life in the West. Various interconnected ecosystems make each area under the lawsuit intrinsically different. Rangelands provide critical wildlife habitat, water resources, oil, gas, mineral reserves, and recreational opportunities. Local economies are closely associated with the use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources as well as rural and wildland resources for tourists. Individual local ecosystems and resources need to be considered as they were when the BLM developed the different Resource Management Plans that govern the different BLM districts.
“Instead of wasting resources on blanket lawsuits, the Western Legacy Alliance and its members advocate for science-based options for resolving environmental and natural resource management issues and incorporating an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving and conflict resolution,” said John McLain, a resource and rangeland specialist and member of WLA.
By filing complaints against 18 individual plans, WWP has demonstrated their ignorance of the uniqueness and regional diversity inherent to the states and areas in question, something an “environmentalist” organization should be ashamed of. Driven by the absence of balanced and objective information, WWP is furthering rangeland resource conflicts that will ultimately ruin the local economies and way of life inherent to the West.
Livestock production in many of these states relies on maintaining healthy native rangelands. The members of the Western Legacy Alliance believe that true conservation groups, industry and all other interests that use public lands can work together to find sustainable solutions that best meet the needs of people and the environment. Misrepresentation and extremist activity on anyone’s part hinder the progress that has been made and ultimately make it more difficult to preserve the natural, cultural and economic facets of the American West.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Herbicide Plan Threatens Endangered Species in New Mexico
Comments Note Failures to Analyze Toxic Effects to Groundwater and Wildlife
The Center for Biological Diversity today filed comments detailing concerns about the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to apply chemical herbicides for noxious-weed control on nearly 1.5 million acres of public land in eastern New Mexico, including source-water zones that feed groundwater springs in the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
The agency issued its proposal in an Environmental Assessment on April 20.
The Center comments note failures of the Bureau’s field office in Roswell to properly assess how herbicides may poison groundwater and wildlife. They also question why the agency did not consider how ongoing management practices contribute to the spread of noxious weeds.
Under a 2007 decision authorizing herbicide use on public land in 17 western states, the Bureau is required to designate “herbicide-specific” buffer zones for local water bodies. In addition, it must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when its actions may affect threatened or endangered species.
The Roswell assessment meets neither of those conditions, according to Jay Lininger, a Center ecologist.
“The Bureau of Land Management admits that toxic herbicides can poison groundwater and wildlife,” Lininger said. “But agency disregard for basic protections seriously threatens the environment.”
In addition to the Bitter Lake refuge, one of the most biologically significant wetland areas in the Pecos River watershed, the public lands managed by the Roswell office host 11 animals and three plants listed under the Endangered Species Act, as well as five other species that are candidates for listing.
Some of the wildlife that could be affected by chemical spraying live in small areas and can’t escape if their habitat becomes toxic.
“Spraying chemicals without consideration for wildlife that may be affected poses an existential threat to some species,” Lininger said.
The Bureau also should carefully consider how grazing, oil and gas leasing, and recreation activities spread noxious weeds and create a need to use toxic herbicides, he said. “Noxious weeds pose a serious threat to native plant communities and wildlife, too, necessitating active management to contain infestations,” Lininger added.
“Weeds are a major problem, and there are many ways to control them besides using toxic chemicals,” he said. “Before using chemicals, the Bureau needs to show that it’s the best method and that it’s safe.”
The Center for Biological Diversity today filed comments detailing concerns about the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to apply chemical herbicides for noxious-weed control on nearly 1.5 million acres of public land in eastern New Mexico, including source-water zones that feed groundwater springs in the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
The agency issued its proposal in an Environmental Assessment on April 20.
The Center comments note failures of the Bureau’s field office in Roswell to properly assess how herbicides may poison groundwater and wildlife. They also question why the agency did not consider how ongoing management practices contribute to the spread of noxious weeds.
Under a 2007 decision authorizing herbicide use on public land in 17 western states, the Bureau is required to designate “herbicide-specific” buffer zones for local water bodies. In addition, it must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when its actions may affect threatened or endangered species.
The Roswell assessment meets neither of those conditions, according to Jay Lininger, a Center ecologist.
“The Bureau of Land Management admits that toxic herbicides can poison groundwater and wildlife,” Lininger said. “But agency disregard for basic protections seriously threatens the environment.”
In addition to the Bitter Lake refuge, one of the most biologically significant wetland areas in the Pecos River watershed, the public lands managed by the Roswell office host 11 animals and three plants listed under the Endangered Species Act, as well as five other species that are candidates for listing.
Some of the wildlife that could be affected by chemical spraying live in small areas and can’t escape if their habitat becomes toxic.
“Spraying chemicals without consideration for wildlife that may be affected poses an existential threat to some species,” Lininger said.
The Bureau also should carefully consider how grazing, oil and gas leasing, and recreation activities spread noxious weeds and create a need to use toxic herbicides, he said. “Noxious weeds pose a serious threat to native plant communities and wildlife, too, necessitating active management to contain infestations,” Lininger added.
“Weeds are a major problem, and there are many ways to control them besides using toxic chemicals,” he said. “Before using chemicals, the Bureau needs to show that it’s the best method and that it’s safe.”
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Editorial: Environmentalists threaten livestock industry in Oregon
If there was any doubt the livestock industry is in a fight for its life, the events of recent weeks surely erased such thoughts.
In Eastern Oregon, Grant County ranchers had heard for months that environmental groups were planning to seek new injunctions on Malheur National Forest grazing allotments. Rumor became reality in early April when the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Western Watershed Project and the Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal judge to halt grazing on six allotments, contending federal land managers have failed to prevent cattle grazing from harming endangered fish.
The new injunction would affect 17 ranchers and an estimated 250,000 acres of land. The environmentalists filed their request just as ranchers were preparing for a new grazing season, one now in limbo. It also came just as the ranchers' legal defense group, the Five Rivers Grazing Permittees, had worked with forest officials to craft a plan for drastically reduced grazing on two allotments environmentalists successfully targeted last year.
Attorneys for the ranchers in mid-April asked the federal court to accept the plan and allow some grazing to resume on the Murderers Creek and Lower Middle Fork grazing allotments. Judge Ancer Haggerty, who granted the injunction on the two allotments in May 2008, is expected to consider both the grazing proposal and the request to bar grazing on the additional six allotments at a hearing in June.
Rural communities are watching with concern as events unfold.
The ranchers whose operations are at stake are on hold are awaiting the judge's decision. They are hopeful - but as one rancher put it, not optimistic - there will be a ruling that will enable them to stay in business.They also are aware this skirmish is just part of a larger battle.
The environmental group WildEarth Guardians' recent report blamed cattle grazing for the demise of nearly every endangered or threatened creature in the woods. It asked us to believe cattle are the cause of a host of sins against nature, just about everything except swine flu.
Never mind climate change, wrong-headed firefighting policies of the past, juniper encroachment and invasive species - cows, pure and simple, are the problem, the report says.
In response, resource managers said the conclusions were simplistic; they stressed grazing is an important tool in the management tool box. While some dismissed the report as extremist, it likely served its purpose - drawing headlines and luring more dollars from urban wallets to fund the fight against grazing.
Such tactics underscore the fact that this situation is about as polarized as any political war could be.
In Grant County, the legal wrangling dates back six years. The court filings have pitted environmentalist groups against federal agencies, but the ramifications go far beyond the realms of just these parties.
Stockmen, landowners, resource agencies, recreationists and more all claim a personal stake in the outcome.
Among the stakeholders who seem to get short shrift are the rural communities - communities that began dealing with recessionary times long before the current economic collapse. For Grant County, already constrained by a straitjacketed timber industry, the loss of the livestock industry could be a crippling blow.
The impact may seem hard to comprehend for urbanites in populous metro areas. To be sure, cattle ranchers don't hire hundreds of shift workers, but each may take on a few ranchhands or a part-timer or two to handle seasonal ranch work in a county where every single job is critical. They hire local contractors to build fences, dig ditches and maintain buildings. They spend needed dollars at feed stores, building supply places, tire stores, auto repair shops and more. The impacts ripple through the local economy; stifle them and the entire county will suffer.
It would be tragic if litigation forced the cattle ranchers out of business and pushed communities a step closer toward ghost towns, but it's not an unimaginable scenario.
It's time to look for creative solutions that work for the both fish and people.
The ranchers are doing that with their grazing compromise; the question remains as to whether theirs will be the only voice of reason in the courtroom in June.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board, comprised of Editor George Murdock, Associate Publisher Kathryn Brown, General Manager Wendy DalPez, Managing Editor Skip Nichols and News Editor Daniel Wattenburger. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
In Eastern Oregon, Grant County ranchers had heard for months that environmental groups were planning to seek new injunctions on Malheur National Forest grazing allotments. Rumor became reality in early April when the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Western Watershed Project and the Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal judge to halt grazing on six allotments, contending federal land managers have failed to prevent cattle grazing from harming endangered fish.
The new injunction would affect 17 ranchers and an estimated 250,000 acres of land. The environmentalists filed their request just as ranchers were preparing for a new grazing season, one now in limbo. It also came just as the ranchers' legal defense group, the Five Rivers Grazing Permittees, had worked with forest officials to craft a plan for drastically reduced grazing on two allotments environmentalists successfully targeted last year.
Attorneys for the ranchers in mid-April asked the federal court to accept the plan and allow some grazing to resume on the Murderers Creek and Lower Middle Fork grazing allotments. Judge Ancer Haggerty, who granted the injunction on the two allotments in May 2008, is expected to consider both the grazing proposal and the request to bar grazing on the additional six allotments at a hearing in June.
Rural communities are watching with concern as events unfold.
The ranchers whose operations are at stake are on hold are awaiting the judge's decision. They are hopeful - but as one rancher put it, not optimistic - there will be a ruling that will enable them to stay in business.They also are aware this skirmish is just part of a larger battle.
The environmental group WildEarth Guardians' recent report blamed cattle grazing for the demise of nearly every endangered or threatened creature in the woods. It asked us to believe cattle are the cause of a host of sins against nature, just about everything except swine flu.
Never mind climate change, wrong-headed firefighting policies of the past, juniper encroachment and invasive species - cows, pure and simple, are the problem, the report says.
In response, resource managers said the conclusions were simplistic; they stressed grazing is an important tool in the management tool box. While some dismissed the report as extremist, it likely served its purpose - drawing headlines and luring more dollars from urban wallets to fund the fight against grazing.
Such tactics underscore the fact that this situation is about as polarized as any political war could be.
In Grant County, the legal wrangling dates back six years. The court filings have pitted environmentalist groups against federal agencies, but the ramifications go far beyond the realms of just these parties.
Stockmen, landowners, resource agencies, recreationists and more all claim a personal stake in the outcome.
Among the stakeholders who seem to get short shrift are the rural communities - communities that began dealing with recessionary times long before the current economic collapse. For Grant County, already constrained by a straitjacketed timber industry, the loss of the livestock industry could be a crippling blow.
The impact may seem hard to comprehend for urbanites in populous metro areas. To be sure, cattle ranchers don't hire hundreds of shift workers, but each may take on a few ranchhands or a part-timer or two to handle seasonal ranch work in a county where every single job is critical. They hire local contractors to build fences, dig ditches and maintain buildings. They spend needed dollars at feed stores, building supply places, tire stores, auto repair shops and more. The impacts ripple through the local economy; stifle them and the entire county will suffer.
It would be tragic if litigation forced the cattle ranchers out of business and pushed communities a step closer toward ghost towns, but it's not an unimaginable scenario.
It's time to look for creative solutions that work for the both fish and people.
The ranchers are doing that with their grazing compromise; the question remains as to whether theirs will be the only voice of reason in the courtroom in June.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board, comprised of Editor George Murdock, Associate Publisher Kathryn Brown, General Manager Wendy DalPez, Managing Editor Skip Nichols and News Editor Daniel Wattenburger. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Influencing Congress: Defenders’ Effective Offense
It’s a deceptively simple political strategy but it works for the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife.
Rather than trying to elect dozens of friendly lawmakers, it’s been concentrating its money on just a few high-profile races and flooding them with money and volunteers.
It was this strategy in 2006 that allowed the group to help defeat Richard W. Pombo, the California Republican who at the time chaired the House Natural Resources Committee.
Armed with $60,000 worth of polling that suggested Pombo was vulnerable, the group spent $1.7 million through two political funds and fielded canvassers across his district with the message that Pombo was “America’s No. 1 wildlife villain” for helping developers, miners, and the oil and gas industry.
A Web site called PomboInTheirPocket.org posted more information. Pombo lost to Democrat Jerry McNerney by 13,000 votes.
The Washington-based wildlife group, founded in 1947 primarily to fight fur trapping, still mainly focuses on the welfare of predators such as wolves and coyotes. And it’s become an example of a shift in the direction of advocacy groups away from general issue campaigns and toward targeted efforts against individual politicians, while at the same time shielding the identity of political contributors.
This new wave of groups, organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code as “ideological education” groups, spent nearly $200 million in the 2007-2008 election cycle, more than each party’s congressional campaign committees, according to a study by the Campaign Finance Institute, an academic research group affiliated with George Washington University.
The Defenders in 2006 were involved in 26 races.
Its candidates won in 14, although most of the effort was against Pombo. “We decided that we’re going to be engaged and go after our weakest enemies,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife and its Action Fund. “We wanted to have an impact on legislation.”
Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the group last fall of raising money by distorting legislation to help Democrats under the guise of environmental protection.
“Campaigns to ‘save the cuddly animals’ or ‘protect the ancient forests’ are really disguised efforts to raise money for Democratic political campaigns,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor. “Environmental organizations have become experts at duplicitous activity, skirting laws up to the edge of illegality and burying their political activities under the guise of nonprofit environmental improvement.”
Last year, the group narrowed its congressional sights even further — to races in Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and particularly the high-desert plains of eastern Colorado. The Action Fund’s $1.1 million spent to defeat Republican Marilyn Musgrave was particularly potent given that Musgrave and her Democratic challenger, Betsy Markey , each spent $2.9 million on the race.
The environmental group broadcast four television advertisements and two radio spots branding Musgrave “one of the most corrupt members of Congress” and in the pocket of Big Oil.
Musgrave called the ads “millions of dollars of garbage” and her campaign manager compared the third-party spending to a boxing match without referees.
The group also deployed 48 campaign staffers who knocked on 83,000 doors in the district. Markey ended up winning in a walk, with 56 percent.
“It did give us additional respect for our issues,” Schlickeisen said. “It sent a message.” Meanwhile, the group was enlarging its lobbying, which increased from $270,000 in 2004 to $906,000 last year.
It also didn’t relax after the election. Since January, the Defenders have been trading accusations with GOP Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska because of her decisions to allow, among other practices, wolf hunting from helicopters.
Palin has branded Defenders an “extreme fringe group” that uses audacious fundraising appeals to attack a program aimed at curbing predators of moose and caribou.
Other Republicans defend the group. Sen. Michael D. Crapo , R-Idaho, said Defenders of Wildlife works collaboratively on divisive issues such as endangered species. “They’ve been willing to work with us, although they have a strong perspective,” Crapo said.
Meantime, the group has stepped up its lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill, spending $906,000 last year compared to $270,000 in 2004.
The group’s interests range from protecting sea otters to conserving roadless areas, but its top goal this year is climate change. The group says it helped push the first climate-change bill from committee to the Senate floor in the 110th Congress.
Despite the collapse of that comprehensive bill, the group won creation of the National Global Warming and Wildlife Science Center for monitoring climate change within the U.S. Geological Survey as part of the fiscal 2008 spending bill for Interior. Now Defenders of Wildlife has proposed designating 5 percent of the federal money from the sale of emissions allowances under a cap-and-trade proposal before Congress for efforts to curb global warming. “If you’re going to have a good program, you need it backed up by science,” Schlickeisen said.
The group also wants to force major federal landholders — the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service — to behave more like the National Park Service by taking wildlife management more into account.
Defenders of Wildlife recruited Rep. Ron Kind , a co-chairman last year of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, to sponsor the legislation as the group negotiated with interests such as Ducks Unlimited and state officials under the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
“Given the large organization that they’ve been able to form, they were able to activate a lot of organizations and interest groups to get in touch with various offices,” said Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat who serves on the Natural Resources and Ways and Means committees.
The Obama administration is considered friendlier to the group’s causes than the Bush administration, but not on every subject. Environmental groups were disappointed with the Interior Department would not revoke a Bush administration rule that limits the ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect polar bears, a threatened species.
“Just because Obama isn’t George Bush doesn’t mean his administration is going to be as pro-conservation as we would like,” Schlickeisen said. “Obviously we’re going to have to work hard there.”
Rather than trying to elect dozens of friendly lawmakers, it’s been concentrating its money on just a few high-profile races and flooding them with money and volunteers.
It was this strategy in 2006 that allowed the group to help defeat Richard W. Pombo, the California Republican who at the time chaired the House Natural Resources Committee.
Armed with $60,000 worth of polling that suggested Pombo was vulnerable, the group spent $1.7 million through two political funds and fielded canvassers across his district with the message that Pombo was “America’s No. 1 wildlife villain” for helping developers, miners, and the oil and gas industry.
A Web site called PomboInTheirPocket.org posted more information. Pombo lost to Democrat Jerry McNerney by 13,000 votes.
The Washington-based wildlife group, founded in 1947 primarily to fight fur trapping, still mainly focuses on the welfare of predators such as wolves and coyotes. And it’s become an example of a shift in the direction of advocacy groups away from general issue campaigns and toward targeted efforts against individual politicians, while at the same time shielding the identity of political contributors.
This new wave of groups, organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code as “ideological education” groups, spent nearly $200 million in the 2007-2008 election cycle, more than each party’s congressional campaign committees, according to a study by the Campaign Finance Institute, an academic research group affiliated with George Washington University.
The Defenders in 2006 were involved in 26 races.
Its candidates won in 14, although most of the effort was against Pombo. “We decided that we’re going to be engaged and go after our weakest enemies,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife and its Action Fund. “We wanted to have an impact on legislation.”
Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the group last fall of raising money by distorting legislation to help Democrats under the guise of environmental protection.
“Campaigns to ‘save the cuddly animals’ or ‘protect the ancient forests’ are really disguised efforts to raise money for Democratic political campaigns,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor. “Environmental organizations have become experts at duplicitous activity, skirting laws up to the edge of illegality and burying their political activities under the guise of nonprofit environmental improvement.”
Last year, the group narrowed its congressional sights even further — to races in Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and particularly the high-desert plains of eastern Colorado. The Action Fund’s $1.1 million spent to defeat Republican Marilyn Musgrave was particularly potent given that Musgrave and her Democratic challenger, Betsy Markey , each spent $2.9 million on the race.
The environmental group broadcast four television advertisements and two radio spots branding Musgrave “one of the most corrupt members of Congress” and in the pocket of Big Oil.
Musgrave called the ads “millions of dollars of garbage” and her campaign manager compared the third-party spending to a boxing match without referees.
The group also deployed 48 campaign staffers who knocked on 83,000 doors in the district. Markey ended up winning in a walk, with 56 percent.
“It did give us additional respect for our issues,” Schlickeisen said. “It sent a message.” Meanwhile, the group was enlarging its lobbying, which increased from $270,000 in 2004 to $906,000 last year.
It also didn’t relax after the election. Since January, the Defenders have been trading accusations with GOP Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska because of her decisions to allow, among other practices, wolf hunting from helicopters.
Palin has branded Defenders an “extreme fringe group” that uses audacious fundraising appeals to attack a program aimed at curbing predators of moose and caribou.
Other Republicans defend the group. Sen. Michael D. Crapo , R-Idaho, said Defenders of Wildlife works collaboratively on divisive issues such as endangered species. “They’ve been willing to work with us, although they have a strong perspective,” Crapo said.
Meantime, the group has stepped up its lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill, spending $906,000 last year compared to $270,000 in 2004.
The group’s interests range from protecting sea otters to conserving roadless areas, but its top goal this year is climate change. The group says it helped push the first climate-change bill from committee to the Senate floor in the 110th Congress.
Despite the collapse of that comprehensive bill, the group won creation of the National Global Warming and Wildlife Science Center for monitoring climate change within the U.S. Geological Survey as part of the fiscal 2008 spending bill for Interior. Now Defenders of Wildlife has proposed designating 5 percent of the federal money from the sale of emissions allowances under a cap-and-trade proposal before Congress for efforts to curb global warming. “If you’re going to have a good program, you need it backed up by science,” Schlickeisen said.
The group also wants to force major federal landholders — the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service — to behave more like the National Park Service by taking wildlife management more into account.
Defenders of Wildlife recruited Rep. Ron Kind , a co-chairman last year of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, to sponsor the legislation as the group negotiated with interests such as Ducks Unlimited and state officials under the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
“Given the large organization that they’ve been able to form, they were able to activate a lot of organizations and interest groups to get in touch with various offices,” said Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat who serves on the Natural Resources and Ways and Means committees.
The Obama administration is considered friendlier to the group’s causes than the Bush administration, but not on every subject. Environmental groups were disappointed with the Interior Department would not revoke a Bush administration rule that limits the ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect polar bears, a threatened species.
“Just because Obama isn’t George Bush doesn’t mean his administration is going to be as pro-conservation as we would like,” Schlickeisen said. “Obviously we’re going to have to work hard there.”
Monday, May 11, 2009
Ranchers fight to keep grazing in Grant County
Ranchers and environmentalists have locked horns over cattle grazing for years. Now a battered economy and a looming court decision are fueling a full-on battle in Grant County.
On one side, ranchers and the county chairman say proposed grazing limits could deal a knockout punch to more than a dozen cattle operations and, because of job losses and lost tax revenue, county social services.
On the other side, an environmental group says wild steelhead are in decline because of stream bank damage caused by grazing cattle.
"The mood here is not good," says Mark Webb, chairman of Grant County commissioners in Canyon City. "A lot of livelihoods" ride on the pending ruling by U.S. District Judge Ancer Haggerty in Portland. A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 9.
The debate affects an eastern Oregon county that has twice the space of Delaware but just 7,500 residents. Grant County is so sparsely populated that it has only one stoplight and three fast-food restaurants, plus a one-night-a-week movie theater in an old Rebekah Lodge. Towns are tiny, with frontier-style buildings harking to the gold rush.
More than 60 percent of the county's land is federally owned, and the John Day River system has more miles designated as wild and scenic than any in the nation.
Unemployment at 18.8 percent in county
The recession has hit the county especially hard. The unemployment rate in March, according to figures by the Oregon Employment Department, was 18.8 percent, compared with 12.9 percent statewide and 9 percent nationwide.
At issue are six grazing allotments on U.S. Forest Service land. The allotments, all in the Malhuer National Forest, encompass about 250,000 acres across a vast tapestry of mountains, canyons, meadows and pine forests.
Three environmental groups, including the Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert Association, filed a request April 10 for an injunction that would banish cattle from the allotments.
Brent Fenty, the group's executive director, says damage in the allotments is severe and threatens the survival of native Middle Columbia steelhead, federally listed as threatened in 1999.
"Something needs to be done about it," he says.
Fenty says the environmental group has collected data over a decade that show steelhead runs far below historic levels.
17 ranches use six allotments
Webb, the county chairman, says 17 ranches use the six allotments and that long-term closures could drive at least half of them out of business, worsening unemployment. The drop in tax revenues, in turn, would shrink funds for social services, hurting even Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day, he says.
And Webb says an injunction could actually hurt steelhead habitat by shifting cattle to private ranchland, where overgrazing could occur along streams. On the ungrazed federal land, grass could grow out of control in summer, raising wildfire risk. And ranches could even be broken up, he says, resulting in homebuilding and loss of rangeland and habitat.
Environmentalists, he says, forget how much fish and wildlife habitat ranches provide.
Spencer Hovekamp, spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Grande, says the injunction, if granted, would mean eight allotments in the Upper and Lower John Day River and its North Fork and Middle Fork subbasins would be closed to livestock. Two allotments were closed by a May 2008 ruling.
He traces the grazing debate to two decades of fighting over timber sales in national forests. Without logging, tree canopies have expanded, he says, shading out grass. Cattle migrate toward streams, he says, where grass is more plentiful.
He declined to comment on steelhead numbers, saying only that the fish are not recovered. He says it's possible to have both steelhead and cattle on the Malheur National Forest, though it may mean more fences and more cowboys tracking cattle on horseback.
The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees
Ranchers, meanwhile, have formed a legal defense fund to fight for cattle grazing: The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees. The group's 42 Grant County ranchers have assessed themselves $10,000 each for attorney fees, says co-chairman Ken Holliday of John Day.
Holliday, 53, says cattle are sometimes blamed for stream bank damage caused by elk and wild horses. He also says a rule prohibiting more than 10 percent stream bank disturbance on some allotments was grabbed out of the sky by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The rule couldn't be met even if no cattle were present, he says.
Environmentalists "are beating ranchers over the head and trying to put us out of business," he says. "I don't understand it."
In February, about 500 supporters showed up at a benefit auction at the Grant County Fairgrounds, raising $77,000 for ranchers' legal costs.
But as bills mount, Holliday says, ranchers may not be able to keep up the fight much longer.
-- Richard Cockle; rcockle@oregonwireless.net
On one side, ranchers and the county chairman say proposed grazing limits could deal a knockout punch to more than a dozen cattle operations and, because of job losses and lost tax revenue, county social services.
On the other side, an environmental group says wild steelhead are in decline because of stream bank damage caused by grazing cattle.
"The mood here is not good," says Mark Webb, chairman of Grant County commissioners in Canyon City. "A lot of livelihoods" ride on the pending ruling by U.S. District Judge Ancer Haggerty in Portland. A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 9.
The debate affects an eastern Oregon county that has twice the space of Delaware but just 7,500 residents. Grant County is so sparsely populated that it has only one stoplight and three fast-food restaurants, plus a one-night-a-week movie theater in an old Rebekah Lodge. Towns are tiny, with frontier-style buildings harking to the gold rush.
More than 60 percent of the county's land is federally owned, and the John Day River system has more miles designated as wild and scenic than any in the nation.
Unemployment at 18.8 percent in county
The recession has hit the county especially hard. The unemployment rate in March, according to figures by the Oregon Employment Department, was 18.8 percent, compared with 12.9 percent statewide and 9 percent nationwide.
At issue are six grazing allotments on U.S. Forest Service land. The allotments, all in the Malhuer National Forest, encompass about 250,000 acres across a vast tapestry of mountains, canyons, meadows and pine forests.
Three environmental groups, including the Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert Association, filed a request April 10 for an injunction that would banish cattle from the allotments.
Brent Fenty, the group's executive director, says damage in the allotments is severe and threatens the survival of native Middle Columbia steelhead, federally listed as threatened in 1999.
"Something needs to be done about it," he says.
Fenty says the environmental group has collected data over a decade that show steelhead runs far below historic levels.
17 ranches use six allotments
Webb, the county chairman, says 17 ranches use the six allotments and that long-term closures could drive at least half of them out of business, worsening unemployment. The drop in tax revenues, in turn, would shrink funds for social services, hurting even Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day, he says.
And Webb says an injunction could actually hurt steelhead habitat by shifting cattle to private ranchland, where overgrazing could occur along streams. On the ungrazed federal land, grass could grow out of control in summer, raising wildfire risk. And ranches could even be broken up, he says, resulting in homebuilding and loss of rangeland and habitat.
Environmentalists, he says, forget how much fish and wildlife habitat ranches provide.
Spencer Hovekamp, spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Grande, says the injunction, if granted, would mean eight allotments in the Upper and Lower John Day River and its North Fork and Middle Fork subbasins would be closed to livestock. Two allotments were closed by a May 2008 ruling.
He traces the grazing debate to two decades of fighting over timber sales in national forests. Without logging, tree canopies have expanded, he says, shading out grass. Cattle migrate toward streams, he says, where grass is more plentiful.
He declined to comment on steelhead numbers, saying only that the fish are not recovered. He says it's possible to have both steelhead and cattle on the Malheur National Forest, though it may mean more fences and more cowboys tracking cattle on horseback.
The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees
Ranchers, meanwhile, have formed a legal defense fund to fight for cattle grazing: The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees. The group's 42 Grant County ranchers have assessed themselves $10,000 each for attorney fees, says co-chairman Ken Holliday of John Day.
Holliday, 53, says cattle are sometimes blamed for stream bank damage caused by elk and wild horses. He also says a rule prohibiting more than 10 percent stream bank disturbance on some allotments was grabbed out of the sky by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The rule couldn't be met even if no cattle were present, he says.
Environmentalists "are beating ranchers over the head and trying to put us out of business," he says. "I don't understand it."
In February, about 500 supporters showed up at a benefit auction at the Grant County Fairgrounds, raising $77,000 for ranchers' legal costs.
But as bills mount, Holliday says, ranchers may not be able to keep up the fight much longer.
-- Richard Cockle; rcockle@oregonwireless.net
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Fed appeals court rules against ranchers
A federal appeals court in Denver has ruled that a group of Wyoming ranchers had no right to formal hearings before the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reduced their livestock grazing under federal permits.
Ranchers with the Smithsfork Grazing Association had sued the BLM and various government officials. The lawsuit challenged the federal agency's 2005 order to reduce grazing on the 91,000-acre Smithsfork Allotment located north and east of Cokeville, in southwestern Wyoming.
A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Tuesday upheld a Wyoming judge's earlier decision that ruled against the ranchers.
Several lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington represented the BLM. Carol A. Statkus, assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Wyoming also worked on the case. John Powell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wyoming, said Tuesday that Statkus had no comment.
Karen Budd-Falen, a Cheyenne lawyer, represented the grazing association. She did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the ruling on Tuesday.
Jonathan Ratner, director of the Wyoming office of the Western Watersheds Project in Pinedale, said Tuesday that his group has been following the dispute and is happy with the appeals court's ruling.
Ratner said there have been some improvements on the allotment since the BLM reduced grazing in the area. However, he said grazing is still causing major problems with streams in the area that support Bonneville cutthroat trout, a species that the BLM has listed as sensitive.
Ratner said he expects the issue of reducing grazing on the Smithsfork Allotment will now proceed to a federal hearing process. He said his group will continue to be involved in that.
"We'll be keeping a very careful eye on this whole process, because the Smithsfork area is one of the last few Bonneville trout populations left in Wyoming, and the BLM is doing really a stunningly poor job of protecting this species."
An attempt to reach John Christensen, field manager at the BLM's office in Kemmerer, on Tuesday was unsuccessful.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association and New Mexico Federal Lands Council entered an appearance in the lawsuit and filed "friend of the court" briefs supporting the Smithsfork Grazing Association's position.
Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, said Tuesday that her group is deeply concerned with the appeals court decision and needs to review it further.
"We got involved because it had to do with the ability to administratively appeal decisions for grazing allotment owners," Cowan said. "That's a universal issue, whether you're in Wyoming, New Mexico or what state you're in.
"Allotment owners need to have the ability to appeal decisions, and feel like they have fairness as they're working with the agency," Cowan said.
Ranchers with the Smithsfork Grazing Association had sued the BLM and various government officials. The lawsuit challenged the federal agency's 2005 order to reduce grazing on the 91,000-acre Smithsfork Allotment located north and east of Cokeville, in southwestern Wyoming.
A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Tuesday upheld a Wyoming judge's earlier decision that ruled against the ranchers.
Several lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington represented the BLM. Carol A. Statkus, assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Wyoming also worked on the case. John Powell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wyoming, said Tuesday that Statkus had no comment.
Karen Budd-Falen, a Cheyenne lawyer, represented the grazing association. She did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the ruling on Tuesday.
Jonathan Ratner, director of the Wyoming office of the Western Watersheds Project in Pinedale, said Tuesday that his group has been following the dispute and is happy with the appeals court's ruling.
Ratner said there have been some improvements on the allotment since the BLM reduced grazing in the area. However, he said grazing is still causing major problems with streams in the area that support Bonneville cutthroat trout, a species that the BLM has listed as sensitive.
Ratner said he expects the issue of reducing grazing on the Smithsfork Allotment will now proceed to a federal hearing process. He said his group will continue to be involved in that.
"We'll be keeping a very careful eye on this whole process, because the Smithsfork area is one of the last few Bonneville trout populations left in Wyoming, and the BLM is doing really a stunningly poor job of protecting this species."
An attempt to reach John Christensen, field manager at the BLM's office in Kemmerer, on Tuesday was unsuccessful.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association and New Mexico Federal Lands Council entered an appearance in the lawsuit and filed "friend of the court" briefs supporting the Smithsfork Grazing Association's position.
Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, said Tuesday that her group is deeply concerned with the appeals court decision and needs to review it further.
"We got involved because it had to do with the ability to administratively appeal decisions for grazing allotment owners," Cowan said. "That's a universal issue, whether you're in Wyoming, New Mexico or what state you're in.
"Allotment owners need to have the ability to appeal decisions, and feel like they have fairness as they're working with the agency," Cowan said.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
BLM Website Statement regarding Grazing Regulations
Following an adverse decision in Western Watersheds Project v. Kraayenbrink, the Bureau of Land Management is presently applying its livestock grazing regulations that were in effect immediately prior to July 12, 2006, with certain exceptions noted below. The grazing regulations in effect immediately prior to July 12, 2006, are found at 43 CFR Part 4100 (2005). Applying these regulations will not have any practical effect on the Bureau’s current management of livestock grazing on BLM-managed public lands.
On February 28, 2008, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho issued a Judgment in the Kraayenbrink decision, enjoining in all respects the BLM grazing regulations published at 71 FR 39402 (July 12, 2006). On June 15, 2007, the BLM issued an instruction memorandum (IM 2007-137) to its field offices advising them to not implement any changes of the grazing regulations promulgated on July 12, 2006. A revised instruction memorandum was published on April 20, 2009 (IM 2009-109).
The BLM has elected to apply the grazing regulations found in the 2005 edition of the Code of Federal Regulations at 43 CFR part 4100 (2005 grazing regulations) to grazing matters administered by the BLM on lands outside of Alaska, with the exception of regulations addressing conservation use, which have not been in use since they were held to be invalid in Public Lands Council v. Babbitt. Any future changes to the 2005 grazing regulations will be pursued in a new rulemaking proceeding. A copy of the regulations at 43 CFR part 4100 (2005) may be viewed on the Internet at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_05/43cfr4100_05.html.
For further information, contact Robert Bolton, (202) 452-7792.
On February 28, 2008, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho issued a Judgment in the Kraayenbrink decision, enjoining in all respects the BLM grazing regulations published at 71 FR 39402 (July 12, 2006). On June 15, 2007, the BLM issued an instruction memorandum (IM 2007-137) to its field offices advising them to not implement any changes of the grazing regulations promulgated on July 12, 2006. A revised instruction memorandum was published on April 20, 2009 (IM 2009-109).
The BLM has elected to apply the grazing regulations found in the 2005 edition of the Code of Federal Regulations at 43 CFR part 4100 (2005 grazing regulations) to grazing matters administered by the BLM on lands outside of Alaska, with the exception of regulations addressing conservation use, which have not been in use since they were held to be invalid in Public Lands Council v. Babbitt. Any future changes to the 2005 grazing regulations will be pursued in a new rulemaking proceeding. A copy of the regulations at 43 CFR part 4100 (2005) may be viewed on the Internet at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_05/43cfr4100_05.html.
For further information, contact Robert Bolton, (202) 452-7792.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Study: Grazing threatens wildlife habitat in West
Conservationists say livestock grazing poses a threat to a wide variety of fish and other wildlife across more than three-fourths of their dwindling habitats on federal land in the West.
Using satellite mapping and federal records, WildEarth Guardians began a study last year matching wildlife habitat and U.S. grazing allotments across more than 260 million acres of federal land in the West.
It includes practically all of the remaining habitat of the Greater sage grouse, a hen-sized game bird the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering adding to the list of threatened or endangered species in 11 Western states from California to Wyoming. The environmental group wants the bird protected.
"The results confirm - in graphic form - previous research finding that incessant, ubiquitous public lands grazing has contributed to the decline of native wildlife," concludes the report entitled "Western Wildlife Under Hoof." The report is scheduled to be released Friday.
The group said continued grazing in ever-shrinking habitat hampers the recovery of fish and wildlife and in some cases threatens them with extinction.
Cattle and sheep trample vegetation, damage soil, spread invasive weeds, spoil water and deprive native wildlife of forage, the report said. It notes that then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said in 2005 that livestock grazing "is the most damaging use of public land."
Mark Salvo, WildEarth Guardians' grazing program specialist and author of the report, said the new data suggest livestock have "done more damage to the Earth than the chain saw and bulldozer combined."
Jeff Eisenberg, director of federal lands for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, criticized the findings as part of an effort to shut down grazing on federal lands.
"There's a number of environmental groups that have decided the best way to spend their time and the money of their funders is to eliminate the families and communities that have made the West what it is today," he told AP in an e-mail. "These groups don't deserve a dignified response."
Don Kirby, president of the Society for Range Management and director of North Dakota State University's School of Natural Resource Sciences, said livestock grazing is an important part of a "landscape management toolbox" that can be used to reduce wildfires and improve wildlife habitat.
"Western rangelands and the wildlife species that live there have coexisted with grazing by large herbivores for tens of thousands of years," Kirby said.
The report found livestock grazing is permitted on 91 percent of the Greater sage grouse's habitat and that grazing operations are active on 72 percent of the habitat. Grazing is active on 55 percent of the federal range of the Gunnison sage grouse and is permitted on 84 percent of it.
Likewise, grazing is permitted on about 80 percent of public land in the historic range of several cutthroat trout species, including 88 percent of the Lahontan and 76 percent of the Bonneville.
It's also permitted on about 75 percent of the federal habitat of four species of prairie dogs.
"The species included in our report are representative of the hundreds of wildlife species that are threatened by public lands grazing," said Salvo, whose group has offices in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
The bulk of the federal land studied is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which issued grazing permits and leases to 15,799 ranchers and other operators covering 128 million acres of U.S. land in 2006.
BLM spokesman Jeff Krauss said the agency has not fully reviewed the report but maintains "well-managed grazing provides numerous ecological and environmental benefits."
Among other things, WildEarth Guardians recommends buying out permits from ranchers and others willing to remove their livestock from grazing land.
"There is a greater economic value in non-consumptive uses of public land - hunting, fishing, birdwatching, hiking, camping - than livestock grazing," the report said.
The Nevada Department of Wildlife shares concerns about dwindling wildlife populations but believes there is a place for grazing on public land, spokesman Chris Healy said.
If ranchers end up selling their land, it could be subdivided and lead to development even more problematic for wildlife, he said.
"It behooves us to get everybody who uses the land to be part of the solution and that's what we've been trying to do with the sage grouse. If one sector or user of the land feels like they are being ganged up on, the odds of coming up with a solution that will work are not good," he said.
Using satellite mapping and federal records, WildEarth Guardians began a study last year matching wildlife habitat and U.S. grazing allotments across more than 260 million acres of federal land in the West.
It includes practically all of the remaining habitat of the Greater sage grouse, a hen-sized game bird the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering adding to the list of threatened or endangered species in 11 Western states from California to Wyoming. The environmental group wants the bird protected.
"The results confirm - in graphic form - previous research finding that incessant, ubiquitous public lands grazing has contributed to the decline of native wildlife," concludes the report entitled "Western Wildlife Under Hoof." The report is scheduled to be released Friday.
The group said continued grazing in ever-shrinking habitat hampers the recovery of fish and wildlife and in some cases threatens them with extinction.
Cattle and sheep trample vegetation, damage soil, spread invasive weeds, spoil water and deprive native wildlife of forage, the report said. It notes that then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said in 2005 that livestock grazing "is the most damaging use of public land."
Mark Salvo, WildEarth Guardians' grazing program specialist and author of the report, said the new data suggest livestock have "done more damage to the Earth than the chain saw and bulldozer combined."
Jeff Eisenberg, director of federal lands for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, criticized the findings as part of an effort to shut down grazing on federal lands.
"There's a number of environmental groups that have decided the best way to spend their time and the money of their funders is to eliminate the families and communities that have made the West what it is today," he told AP in an e-mail. "These groups don't deserve a dignified response."
Don Kirby, president of the Society for Range Management and director of North Dakota State University's School of Natural Resource Sciences, said livestock grazing is an important part of a "landscape management toolbox" that can be used to reduce wildfires and improve wildlife habitat.
"Western rangelands and the wildlife species that live there have coexisted with grazing by large herbivores for tens of thousands of years," Kirby said.
The report found livestock grazing is permitted on 91 percent of the Greater sage grouse's habitat and that grazing operations are active on 72 percent of the habitat. Grazing is active on 55 percent of the federal range of the Gunnison sage grouse and is permitted on 84 percent of it.
Likewise, grazing is permitted on about 80 percent of public land in the historic range of several cutthroat trout species, including 88 percent of the Lahontan and 76 percent of the Bonneville.
It's also permitted on about 75 percent of the federal habitat of four species of prairie dogs.
"The species included in our report are representative of the hundreds of wildlife species that are threatened by public lands grazing," said Salvo, whose group has offices in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
The bulk of the federal land studied is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which issued grazing permits and leases to 15,799 ranchers and other operators covering 128 million acres of U.S. land in 2006.
BLM spokesman Jeff Krauss said the agency has not fully reviewed the report but maintains "well-managed grazing provides numerous ecological and environmental benefits."
Among other things, WildEarth Guardians recommends buying out permits from ranchers and others willing to remove their livestock from grazing land.
"There is a greater economic value in non-consumptive uses of public land - hunting, fishing, birdwatching, hiking, camping - than livestock grazing," the report said.
The Nevada Department of Wildlife shares concerns about dwindling wildlife populations but believes there is a place for grazing on public land, spokesman Chris Healy said.
If ranchers end up selling their land, it could be subdivided and lead to development even more problematic for wildlife, he said.
"It behooves us to get everybody who uses the land to be part of the solution and that's what we've been trying to do with the sage grouse. If one sector or user of the land feels like they are being ganged up on, the odds of coming up with a solution that will work are not good," he said.
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