Harney County to environmental groups: Leave pardoned ranchers alone

Maxine Bernstein 

Harney County is coming to the defense of the Hammonds, the father-and-son ranchers pardoned last year by President Trump and now fighting to maintain a 10-year permit to graze cattle on federal land outside Burns. The county’s attorney, a commissioner, the sheriff and some residents argue much is at stake for southeastern Oregon’s high desert expanse, still reeling from the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. On Friday, a federal judge will consider whether to issue an order that likely would stop Hammond Ranches Inc. from grazing its livestock this season on two federal allotments while three environmental groups challenge the cattle family’s permit as unlawful. Many of the people living in the state’s largest county rely on ranching and agriculture to fuel the regional economy and are watching closely to see how the jurisdictional battle plays out and what it could mean for them. Some see the lawsuit by the Western Watersheds Project, the Center for Biological Diversity and Wildearth Guardians as more unwanted attention from outside agitators, especially given that it involves the Hammonds – whose case inspired both the refuge occupation and the latest court fight. “It is time for the press, the courts, the politicians, the far rights, far lefts and the somewhere in between folks to let us get back to our lives here in Harney County,” Sheriff Dave Ward wrote to the Portland judge hearing the suit. “I deeply miss the culture we had here before everybody else came along trying to ‘educate’ us on how to live in our own community.’’ The environmental groups argue that renewed grazing will remove tall grass and other flowering plants in sage grouse habitat during nesting season. The birds depend on the vegetation for protection from predators and for food. The groups also contend the cattle will trample stream banks and harm redband trout. In early June, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon granted a temporary restraining order barring Hammond Ranches from grazing cattle on two allotments covered in the permit until early July. The order didn’t affect Hammond cows already grazing on two other government allotments. The judge cited concerns that Zinke’s one-paragraph analysis using the pardons as the basis for the permit approval had no supporting evidence. Simon found the environmental groups had shown that they’re likely to succeed in their claim that the government issued the permit in violation of federal laws causing “irreparable harm’’ to a sensitive species. He will consider granting a preliminary injunction that would extend the ban indefinitely until the groups’ suit is decided. The ranchers at the center of the debate so far haven’t moved to intervene in the lawsuit to fight the grazing ban. But Steven Hammond, president of Hammond Ranches, has called the suit more of a “personal attack’ on his family rather than a legitimate argument for environmental protections...MORE