Getting grouse, grazing on Interior's radar

The Idaho Republican told Sally Jewell to examine the Bureau of Land Management decision that will force Owyhee County ranchers to reduce the number of cattle they graze on public lands. The agency told ranchers in January that it was instituting reductions because three of the four areas in the southeast corner of Owyhee County don't meet rangeland health standards in effect since the late 1990s. The 252,000 acres are the first of 75 grazing permit renewals U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered the BLM to finish this year after a lawsuit was filed by Western Watersheds Project. BLM Idaho State Director Steve Ellis said Friday he's the one who has to make sure all permits are completed on time: "It's going to be me who'll be in contempt of court if we don't meet our obligations on those permit renewals." Ellis said he supports livestock grazing on public lands, but he said his agency has to take a tough stand so that Winmill doesn't issue an order removing all livestock from the range. Risch, state officials and others have not challenged the BLM's rangeland standards. But they are asking Ellis and his superiors to give ranchers more time to meet them. The Owyhee Initiative board of directors, which represents groups as diverse as the Wilderness Society, the Owyhee Cattlemen's Association, the Idaho Conservation League, The Nature Conservancy and the Idaho Farm Bureau, wrote Ellis urging him to seek ways to meet his obligation to the court recognizing its standards for rangeland health. But the 12 members of the Initiative also wrote: "We have often found that making the effort to explore ways to minimize the impacts of decisions like these can produce more durable, successful results - an outcome we all hope to achieve." Adding to the BLM's isolation was the Natural Resources Conservation Service decision early this month to terminate its role as a cooperating agency in the environmental review of the permits, in light of the anger in the ranching community that the Conservation Service serves...more