Judge says BLM underreports grazing impacts

A scathing decision by an administrative law judge has concluded the Bureau of Land Management underreports impacts of grazing leases on Rich County’s 25,000-acre Duck Creek allotment. If the ruling’s reasoning is applied broadly, it could change the way BLM manages grazing on its holdings across the arid West, according to Jim Catlin of Wild Utah Project. The 140-page opinion by Judge James Heffernan, released last month, said the BLM ignored inconvenient data and contrarian views in its environmental assessment of the Duck Creek project, intended to be a showcase for public-lands grazing. Also, the BLM’s grazing-management practices could violate the agency’s own range-health standards and put sage grouse habitat at risk, according to the ruling that remands the project back to the BLM to revise it in accordance with Heffernan’s findings. He released his decision after fielding the longest appeals hearing in the history of the Taylor Grazing Act. The transcript exceeds 15,000 pages and Catlin himself spent 200 hours on the witness stand. Utah BLM officials say their 2009 decision, which Heffernan reversed, put in place a four-pasture rotation system, exclosures and upland water troughs to keep cattle out of riparian areas, extensive monitoring and other innovations that are not ordinarily required. BLM is considering appealing the decision to the Interior Board of Land Appeals and has until June 17 to file...more