Blm Critics Sue Over Grazing Plans

A conservation group has filed a lawsuit over the fact that less than 14 percent of grazing allotments in south-central Idaho have approved allotment management plans.

The lawsuit, filed by the Idaho Watersheds Project, complains that the Bureau of Land Management has been slow to write grazing management plans to protect riparian areas, the green ribbons of vegetation along desert creeks in western Owyhee County.

Of 165 grazing allotments in the Owyhee Resource Area, 18 have approved management plans. The numbers are similar elsewhere in southern Idaho.

Where plans are not in place, the BLM is trying to include terms and conditions in annual grazing permits that would exclude cattle from sensitive areas and set minimum stubble heights in riparian areas at the end of the growing season.

But Laird Lucas, a lawyer representing the Idaho Watersheds Project, said those terms are not being enforced.

A request for a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit was heard last week in U.S. District Court in Boise.

The injunction would block ranchers from turning cattle out on the BLM’s 1.3 million acre Owyhee Resource Area in southwestern Idaho until an approved management plan can be completed.