WWP Scores Another Win in Arizona

WWP just won a "stay" of the Lizard and Wolfhole Project decision in northern Arizona, which halts grazing permit renewals and mechanical thinning and the use of herbicides on thousands of acres of native species pending the outcome of our appeal. In late February, a Bureau of Land Management Administrative Law Judge agreed with us that the Arizona BLM’s plans – to rip up native vegetation and install new fences, pipeline, and massive water storage tanks for livestock on lands north of the Grand Canyon – needed to be put on hold until the agency took a better look at the negative impacts their plans would have on native plants and wildlife. Western Watersheds Project has been working to protect this area for nearly a decade, first asking the BLM to take a harder look at the negative impacts of livestock grazing in 2012, again in 2013 and 2018. The BLM ignored our recommendations and instead pushed forward with a proposed decision that ignored concerns about environmental damage. We appealed the decision in January 2020, and the judge agreed with us that BLM failed to adequately consider the impacts of reauthorizing livestock grazing and destroying native vegetation. While the case proceeds, the BLM is blocked from forging ahead with the unnatural destruction of sagebrush and trees with chemicals and chaining while simultaneously claiming that using these heavy-handed approaches are somehow letting nature take its course. The proposed water storage tanks would have diverted and pumped tens of thousands of gallons of water for livestock use, yet BLM chose to ignore the impacts on the hydrology of the area. Despite our requests, the BLM failed to even acknowledge the harm to wildlife associated with water tanks such as target shooting and the associated trash and debris...MORE