Wednesday, April 15, 2015

New documents reveal little about 2014 Bundy-BLM clash

Plodding along seemingly slower than desert tortoises that spawned the dispute between Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management more than 20 years ago, the BLM has finally provided a watchdog group with a few dozen pages of documents under a Freedom of Information Act request. But none of the heavily redacted documents sheds light on what led to last year’s armed standoff between Bundy’s supporters and federal agents. The standoff occurred after the BLM hired a helicopter firm to round up more than 300 of his free-roaming cows from the Gold Butte range only to let them be released from a makeshift corral on April 12, 2014, as a potentially violent confrontation loomed. “There’s so little information; we don’t know why it took a year to find 44 pages,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. His group requested the documents in late April for an FOIA lawsuit it filed against the BLM in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “This is more of a reflection of the way the BLM operates than the frailty of the FOIA,” he said. “The absence of documents raises questions if this is a professionally managed outfit.” On April 13, 2014, hours after the standoff ended, the Las Vegas Review-Journal filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking copies of receipts, bills, contracts and other financial records pertaining to the cost of the 2014 roundup in addition to emails about the roundup that were copied to BLM Southern Nevada District Manager Tim Smith, BLM Director Neil Kornze and then-Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie. “The Review-Journal requested BLM FOIA documents on activities at the Bundy Ranch more than a year ago. To date, the BLM has not provided the requested documents,” said Mark Hinueber, vice president of the Review-Journal...more

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