Overgrazing Cited As Conservation Groups Sue Blm Seek To Block Return Of Cattle To Tract Agency Says Has Been Damaged

Two conservation groups have sued the Bureau of Land Management to keep cattle off a huge Owyhee County grazing allotment that the agency admits has been seriously damaged by decades of heavy livestock use.

“It’s time for the BLM to step up and take action to protect our public lands,” said Hailey architect Jon Marvel, president of Idaho Watersheds Project. “It’s too bad it will take a federal judge to make them do their job.”

Marvel’s group and the Committee for Idaho’s High Desert filed a complaint in federal court on Wednesday seeking to block the April 1 turnout of thousands of cattle on the 260,000-acre Castle Creek Grazing Allotment south of Grand View.

The groups said a BLM analysis of the allotment released last month “documented the abject and total degradation of natural resources and the continuous purposeful mismanagement of livestock by ranchers with 30 years of evidence.”

Signe Blair, area manager for the BLM’s Boise District, acknowledged many areas of the allotment do not meet water quality and riparian area management standards. She said the BLM will develop recommendations this summer and hopes to have a decision on how to address the problems ready by Jan. 1.

“We’re not disputing the facts,” Blair said. “We’re just disputing with the Watersheds Project that an action needs to be taken immediately. We think an action needs to be taken, but we need some time to figure out a long-term strategy. It’s not an easy fix.”

She said none of the 10 livestock operations that graze on the allotment have been cited for violating the terms of their permits, but she declined comment on whether the BLM has gotten the cooperation it needs from ranchers.

Laird Lucas of The Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, an environmental law center representing the conservation groups, said he considers that lack of enforcement typical of the BLM’s attitude toward the range.

“Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management bends over backwards to help the stockmen,” he said. “They have simply not cut these guys back; they have not forced them to do what they’re supposed to do.”

Lucas said documents show the agency has known since at least 1959 that the allotment was being severely overgrazed.

Blair said some management changes have been ordered to combat overgrazing, such as implementing a four-inch stubble height requirement last year along some of the main streams of concern.

But she said the agency does not want to take drastic action immediately for the same reason it has not done more yet about problems from grazing practices that date back to the turn of the century.

“We’ve never had the data to support the decisions in the past,” she said. “We have to make sure we’re not arbitrary and capricious in our decisions.”