Ranchers Granted Grazing Rights, But Opponents Take Heart

U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill will allow ranchers to turn out cattle on the 260,000-acre Castle Creek allotment in Owyhee County, but he says opponents have a likelihood of success in derailing the practice later in April.

Winmill on Monday denied a request by the Idaho Watersheds Project and the Committee for Idaho’s High Desert for a temporary restraining order to block the April 1 turnout of thousands of cattle on the federal allotment south of Grand View.

He scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing on April 18. The two groups had sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to halt release of the stock. The cows will be turned loose, but environmentalists still liked what they heard from his latest decision.

“Unquestionably, plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims,” Winmill said. A BLM study “appears to document widespread and long-standing violations of the Clean Water Act on the Castle Creek allotment.”

It may also establish the BLM’s non-compliance with other federal rules such as the National Environmental Policy Act.

“This is a remarkable decision which may well lead to the removal of livestock from this allotment or the implementation of long overdue livestock management requirements by the BLM to protect public lands and waters,” said Hailey architect Jon Marvel, head of the Watersheds Project.

For several years, Marvel has tried to acquire state grazing leases to demonstrate how pulling livestock away from streamside areas will help them recover.

Signe Blair, area manager for the BLM’s Boise District, earlier said none of the 10 livestock operations that graze on the Castle Creek allotment has been cited for violating the terms of their permits.

She acknowledged many areas of the allotment do not meet water quality and riparian area management standards, but the agency needs time to figure out a long-term strategy to improve it.

Laird Lucas of The Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, an environmental law center representing the conservation groups, said documents show the agency has known since at least 1959 that the allotment was being severely overgrazed.