Environmentalists to lose land linked to preserve

An environmental group stands to lose land linked to its signature Idaho wildlife preserve because federal land managers contend they've been misled over how the site would be managed. Western Watersheds Project oversees three BLM grazing allotments totaling about 7,000 acres, or 11 square miles, connected to its Greenfire Preserve near the East Fork of the Salmon River. Valley Sun LLC, a company headed by Gordon Younger, a Seattle environmentalist and a financial supporter of Western Watersheds, has a permit for the allotments but doesn't graze cattle there. BLM officials from Challis, located 280 miles north of Boise in the mountains, this month told Younger he "knowingly or willfully made false statements or representations" about his plans for the allotments. As a result, they were canceling his permit "in its entirety."...read more