Federal judge limits cattle grazing for Harney County’s Hammond Ranches

A federal judge will allow Hammond Ranches Inc. to graze its cattle on parts of a federal allotment called Hardie Summer this season but must limit its use as three environmental advocacy groups challenge the Harney County ranchers’ federal grazing permit in court. U.S. District Judge ­Michael H. Simon issued a 58-page written ruling Tuesday, granting a partial preliminary injunction after two days of oral arguments. The judge approved an alternative grazing plan that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had proposed at last month’s hearing. The three environmental groups suing the federal land agency rejected the alternative at the start of the hearing and urged a halt to any cattle grazing by the Harney County ranchers on federal land. The Hardie Summer allotment is about 9,800 acres, of which approximately 39 percent is owned by the Hammonds, and 61 percent, or 6,000 acres, is publicly owned. The allotment is subdivided into five pastures on which the cattle rotate during grazing. The restrictions will reduce harm to sage grouse and will lessen the harms to redband trout, Simon wrote in his ruling. The judge issued the restrictions amid a finding that the environmental groups had shown a likelihood of succeeding in proving that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s order for the government to reissue a 10-year grazing permit to the Hammonds this year “was arbitrary and capricious” and unlawful...MORE