Park Service signs deal to round up Death Valley’s wild burros

A wild burro stands in Death Valley National Park. The agency has entered into a five-year agreement with a nonprofit rescue group to remove all burros from the park. (National Park Service)

By Henry Brean
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Death Valley National Park hopes to be burro-free within the next five years.

The National Park Service said Thursday it has entered into a contract with Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, a Texas-based nonprofit, to round up and remove up to 2,500 wild burros from the park 100 miles west of Las Vegas.

The animals are not native to Death Valley, but they have made themselves at home there, said park Superintendent Mike Reynolds. They damage springs and vegetation, create a safety hazard on park roads and compete for food and water with desert bighorn sheep and other native animals.

“Burros are not part of the natural California desert ecosystem,” Reynolds said in a written statement. “With this partnership, we have created a win-win situation for the burros, the park and taxpayers.”

Starting later this month, Peaceful Valley will lure the animals with food and water or drive them with wranglers on horseback into temporary pens. The burros will then be trucked out of the park to training centers to be prepped for adoption.

“Our main objective is to protect our wild burros. If they must be removed, we want to ensure that it is done safely with as little stress possible,” Mark Meyers, the rescue group’s executive director, said in a written statement.

“This is what they do,” Death Valley spokeswoman Abby Wines said of Peaceful Valley. “Their main mission is to rescue burros and put them up for adoption.”

Wines said the group has agreed to find room at one of its sanctuaries for any animals that can’t be trained or placed in new homes.

Pleasant Valley also plans to remove up to 2,500 wild burros from nearby Mojave National Preserve in California under the same five-year contract.

The operation is being paid for with private donations and grants to the group. Wines said the cost to the federal government is “pretty close to zero.”

Eliminating wild burros from Death Valley has been the Park Service’s stated goal since the adoption of a master plan for the 3.4 million acre park in 2002, but no roundups have been conducted since 2005.

So why now? “They’re multiplying,” Wines said. “We don’t really know what our population is, but we think it’s in the neighborhood of 2,000.”

The largest concentrations of burros can be found in Saline and Butte valleys and in the Wildrose area, she said, but the animals also have recently shown up in the Black Mountains south of Dantes View for the first time since the 1940s.

The National Park Service is allowed to remove them because it is not bound by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which requires the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage and maintain the animals on public land.

The wild burros of today are not related to the larger animals used in the 20-mule teams that famously hauled borax out of Death Valley in the late 1800s, but Wines said they may be the descendants of old pack animals once used by prospectors in the region.

“That’s the foundation of the wild population in the West,” she said.

The Park Service doesn’t expect the upcoming roundup to eliminate the burro problem entirely.

For one thing, Wines said, “it will be very hard to get all of them.”

And there is nothing to stop burros from neighboring parts of Nevada and California from making their way into Death Valley some day.

“We’re not going to fence the park,” Wines said.

New Mexico county defies U.S. government over cattle grazing

BY JOSEPH KOLB
Reuters

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico - A rural New Mexico county has voted to defy the federal government and give a rancher's cattle access to a watering hole fenced off by the Forest Service in the latest dispute over federal control of public land in the U.S. West.

Commissioners in Otero County voted 2-0 on Monday night to authorize Sheriff Benny House to open a gate allowing nearly 200 head of cattle into the 23-acre area despite Forest Service restrictions. A third commissioner was out of town for the vote.

"We are reacting to the infringement of the U.S. Forest Service on the water rights of our land-allotment owners," Otero County Commissioner Tommie Herrell told Reuters. "People have been grazing there since 1956."

But a U.S. Forest Service spokesman said the fence has also been there for decades, protecting a delicate ecosystem surrounding a natural spring as well as an endangered species of mouse from being trampled by cattle.

The dispute is the latest squabble between federal authorities and conservative states' rights advocates in the West, who want to take back millions of acres of public land from central government agencies.

It comes in the wake of an armed standoff last month between supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and federal land managers who sought unsuccessfully to seize his cattle over his longstanding refusal to pay grazing fees.

Bundy and his allies do not recognize federal authority over the land, which has been cleared of other ranchers' livestock to protect the habitat of the desert tortoise.

In the New Mexico case, Forest Service spokesman Mark Chavez said an old barbed-wire fence had recently been upgraded in cooperation with the rancher, and allowed room for a watering canal for the cattle without disturbing protected land.

He said the fence allows calves in and out of the area and there were other watering holes on the rancher's 28,850-acre grazing allotment some 45 miles southeast of Alamogordo.

Herrell said the rancher involved had complained repeatedly to the commission about the fence. The rancher was unavailable for comment on Tuesday afternoon

Chavez said the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse was expected to be listed as an endangered species in June, which would mean those 23 acres would be considered a critical habitat.

"I've never seen one of these mice, and the Forest Service claims they caught one last year," Herrell said.

While Otero County commissioners had given the sheriff approval to obtain a court order lifting the restrictions, Herrell said that House would not act until after local officials meet with the U.S. attorney for New Mexico on Friday.

Western Ranchers Defend Big Victory in Grazing Battle

Fairfield Sun Times

DENVER -- Two ranching organizations, an Arizona ranch, and an Arizona rancher at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today defended their victory from an Arizona federal district court that granted them summary judgment in a lawsuit by environmental groups demanding that grazing permits be revoked and subjected to lengthy federal environmental review.

The groups claim the U.S. Forest Service violated federal law when it reauthorized permits that allow ranchers to graze their livestock on nearby federal lands as they have done for generations by failing to conduct full environmental impact statements (EISs) pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) prior to reissuing the permits.

The Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association, the Public Lands Council, Orme Ranch, Inc., and Bert Teskey, all represented by Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), maintain that Congress made clear that no EISs are required. After the two groups dropped challenges to seven Forest Service decisions, the matter was briefed and argued. The district court upheld the agency’s ruling as to seven of the eight decisions.

“The Forest Service complied with the law and the panel should uphold the district court’s ruling,” said William Perry Pendley, MSLF president.”

In fiscal years 2005 through 2007, the Forest Service, without conducting environmental reviews pursuant to NEPA, reauthorized several grazing permits on lands managed by the Forest Service. On August 15, 2011, the Western Watersheds Project and the Center For Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit alleging that 17 of the reauthorizations—seven in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, three in the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, six in the Prescott National Forest in Arizona, and one in the Coronado National Forest in New Mexico—violated NEPA. The lawsuit was filed despite the clear intent of Congress that the Forest Service is not required to do the reviews.

Beginning in 1995, Congress enacted legislation to address its concern that the inability of the Forest Service to complete NEPA analyses on expiring term grazing permits would delay renewal of the permits to the detriment of the western ranchers involved. Specifically, Congress sought to reduce the amount of documentation and expense required to conduct NEPA. In 2003, Congress strengthened these protections of ongoing livestock grazing by directing that term grazing permits shall remain in effect pending compliance with NEPA. Then, in 2005, Congress directed that reauthorization of grazing permits is “categorically excluded” from documentation under NEPA if the Forest Service makes certain determinations. The total number of allotments reauthorized under the provision may not exceed 900.

Mountain States Legal Foundation, created in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in suburban Denver, Colorado.

GOP rips public land shutdown

By Ben Geman
The Hill

Hunters and tourists are needlessly being kept away from public lands during the shutdown, Republicans claimed Tuesday.

GOP members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee accused the Interior Department of closing roads and lands that could have been kept open in Western states.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is wrongly blocking access for hunters as the Alaskan winter approaches.

“This is moose season. This is hunting season. This is when Alaskans are filling up their freezer for a long winter. In so many of our communities there is no Costco; there is no Safeway; there is no grocery store,” said Murkowski, the panel’s top Republican. “Our hunting areas are the grocery store.”

Several GOP lawmakers spoke after the committee unanimously approved two nominees for roles in the Energy and Interior departments. The committee plans to hold a hearing as soon as next week on the shutdown's effects.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) blasted the Interior Department's closures of areas in his state.

He said scenic highway overlooks to view Grand Teton National Park have been closed even though they don’t have trash cans or restrooms that would require staffing.

“No money has been saved by doing this,” he said.

“The Obama administration has made a concerted effort to intentionally hurt the public,” Barrasso said. “Maybe the [National] Park Service could study how to drop a large curtain in front of the mountains to block the view from the road,” he said with sarcasm.

Barrasso also said the FWS has closed a bike path that runs next to Highway 89 outside of Jackson, Wyo., for no good reason.

“Small and petty actions like these have been taken all across the West,” he said.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), meanwhile, said a rafting company in his state is losing business because a launch ramp has been closed by the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department.

Republicans are taking aim at restricted access to Washington, D.C.-area monuments and attractions and lands across the country.

“It appears this is a strategy to maximize disruption associated with the shutdown rather than minimize it,” Murkowski said, adding that private concessionaires are getting hurt from missing business.

Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Tuesday noted harms to energy permitting, hunting, logging and other effects of the shutdown.

Democrats want Republicans to agree to a “clean” spending bill to reopen government.

Wyden said that problems are inevitable until the government is back in business. He noted the shutdown is “inherently messy.”

“We are going to have all of these contradictions in policies, ambiguities and confusions about interpretation, and it is almost impossible to avoid it until we get the government open,” Wyden said.

Out Of Touch President Obama Fiddles While Tombstone, AZ Burns

Ralph Benko, Contributor
Forbes

Welcome to the Wild West, 2012 style. The Feds to Tombstone: “If you want to fix your water line, better lawyer up and talk to President Obama.”

The left is attacking Mitt Romney as “out of touch.” But the left’s own champion, President Obama, is truly the out of touch candidate. The U.S. Forest Service — of which the president is ultimate boss — is preventing, on the flimsiest of excuses, Tombstone Arizona from rebuilding its water pipeline. Obama, conniving, is putting Tombstone, a fixture of American history, in mortal danger.

Tombstone was the site of the “Showdown at the OK Corral.” It was a silver mining boomtown and very Wild West: over a dozen saloons, 6 gambling halls, a very cosmopolitan city. Today Tombstone is a cultural attraction with 1500 residents and tens of thousands of visitors.

But now the U.S. Forest Service is building a tomb for Tombstone. A massive forest fire in 2011 wiped out the vegetation in Coronado National Park, wherein lies Tombstone’s waterworks — which were destroyed by the following torrential rains.

“I sat on the road in my car and watched the fire,” recalls Nancy Sosa, Tombstone native, its archivist, mother of five. “My kids and I were between Tombstone and Sierra Vista, about 26 miles away from the fire, watching in shock. You don’t grow up in Tombstone not knowing where your water comes from. Water is the most precious thing in the desert.”

The ensuing monsoon damage was severe but readily fixable. Except that Tombstone’s water sources are surrounded by a designated wilderness area. Their water was privately owned and therefore exempted by President Teddy Roosevelt from national forest status … and, thus, exempted from the Wilderness Act. That Act applies only to national forest, not private property. And yet, the U.S. Forest service takes the position that Tombstone needs its permission to bring in tractors and bulldozers to clear the rubble throttling its water supplies.

Tombstone cannot survive long on the tiny wells located in town or on the small amount of water it temporarily was able to hand patch through its water main. It needs to use regular earth-moving equipment to repair its lines. As Sosa explains, “you have boulders the size of motorcycles breaking your pipeline, and other boulders and uprooted trees mangling it… the water is buried by 6 to 15 feet of boulders, trees, rocks.”

Coronado is not an exceptionally delicate ecology. Fire and monsoons have had far more impact than would a few tractors and bulldozers. And yet, the Forest Service forbids Tombstone to bring in crews with earth-moving machinery.

Soon after the fire Sosa and City Clerk Manager George Barnes asked the Forest Service what, if anything, was required to bring in a crew with mechanized equipment. A Forest Service representative emailed her back the next day that they had to look into the ownership as to what the city was entitled to.

Tombstone owns the springs outright and has a clear easement for its water pipe. Its ownership is a public record. It can be looked up in minutes, not months. But the Forest Service took three months (reminded almost daily by Ms. Sosa and Mr. Barnes) to respond.

The eventual reply? According to Sosa, the Forest Service took the position that Tombstone didn’t own anything and therefore the Service would not permit it to bring in equipment. “Didn’t own anything” anticipates “You didn’t build that” in its contempt for private property.

Tombstone faced (and faces) a risk of burning to the ground and has good reason to believe that the Wilderness Act does not apply to its property. So its Mayor took a crew with earth-moving machinery into the mountains. The Forest Service’s rangers met them there, stopped them, and told them that they’d better “lawyer up and call President Obama.” Soon after, Mayor Jack Henderson, City Clerk Manager George Barnes, Sosa, and the work crew met with the Service. The Service had copies of all of Tombstone’s deeds and documentation but gave the officials a polite runaround.

What was the government’s reasoning for refusal to accommodate the lawful claims of the citizens of Tombstone? According to a New York Times report , “Jim M. Upchurch, the forest supervisor at Coronado, issued a split decision: bulldozers and tractors would be allowed in the lowest of the damaged areas to move truck-size boulders that had crashed onto the pipe, but they could not be used elsewhere. ‘We think there are other options to protecting your water source without being so disruptive on the environment,’ Mr. Upchurch said as he hiked Miller Canyon, where the repairs were under way.”

Translation: Let Tombstone burn. Tombstone is represented in litigation by the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation which is seeking to protect “states and their subdivisions from federal regulations that prevent them from using and enjoying their property in order to fulfill the essential functions of protecting public health and safety.” Goldwater’s Nick Dranias told the New York Times: “’We’re not asking to build a superhighway, or to cut a path where there has never been a path…. We just want to be left alone to repair and restore fully the water system that Tombstone is entitled to maintain.’”

The Forest Service’s motto is “Caring for the Land and Serving People.” Its own Guiding Principles include:

We are good neighbors who respect private property rights.

We strive for quality and excellence in everything we do and are sensitive to the effects of our decisions on people and resources.

We strive to meet the needs of our customers in fair, friendly, and open ways.

High-sounding principles. Forest Service Chief Thomas L. Tidwell, and Associate Chief Mary Wagner, really shouldn’t let their motto become “Caring for the Land, the People be Damned.” To condemn Tombstone to the flames because “We think there are other options to protecting your water source” smacks as arbitrary, capricious, and by no means neighborly. It’s peculiar that these “options” go unspecified.

President Obama, on June 29th, in Colorado Springs after viewing wildfire damage, made a typically inspirational call-out: “We’ve got to make sure that we have each other’s backs. And that spirit is what you’re seeing in terms of volunteers, in terms of firefighters, in terms of government officials. Everybody is pulling together to try to deal with this situation.”

Oh really? Obama could get the Forest Service to permit Tombstone to fix its waterworks with one phone call. If he doesn’t make that call his claim that “We’ve got to make sure that we have each other’s backs” shows as a pious fraud. And if Tombstone burns to the ground (which happened twice before the water line was installed) the president may be seen as a modern Nero who fiddled while Tombstone burned.

The left paints Mitt Romney as out of touch for the occasional harmless gaffe. But if Barack Obama lets the Forest Service arbitrarily, perhaps even illegally, refuse to allow Tombstone to rebuild its water lines, Obama just might end up reading, by firelight, his own political tombstone: Barack Obama, Out of Touch.

Litigation, Red Tape Fuel Megafires damaging Forests, Communities, Species

Press Release
Committee on Natural Resources
United States House of Representatives

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Natural Resources Committee held an oversight hearing on, “The Impact of Catastrophic Forest Fires and Litigation on People and Endangered Species: Time for Rational Management of our Nation's Forests.”

The hearing focused on the devastating impacts of catastrophic wildfires on people and species and how Endangered Species Act litigation blocks activities that help prevent and fight fires.

“Information provided by the Justice Department to this Committee reveals that at least 59 environmental lawsuits against the Forest Service and BLM have been filed or are open during just the past four years. These suits have stopped most human or economic activity connected with forests, including eliminating thousands of jobs. They have also obstructed projects to improve species habitat on thousands of acres decimated by fires, by removing dead or diseased trees, maintaining access roads to fire areas, and removing ash and sediment.

Ironically, some of these lawsuits aimed at ‘saving’ forests have resulted in their actual destruction, where once old-growth, critical habitat forests now resemble the moon’s surface after fires,” said Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04).

“Our communities and endangered species deserve practical solutions now to address and reduce the risks of megafires. We owe it to them to improve federal forest health and species habitat and ensure that the Endangered Species Act works to protect species and people before and after these devastating fires occur.”

Free the American West

Get the federal government off public lands that are of no national importance

Opinion
By Robert H. Nelson
Los Angeles Times

Like much else in government, U.S. public land policy is a vestige of the past, established in 1910 when America's population was just 92.2 million and a Western state such as Nevada had only 81,000 residents.

Today our needs are much different and much greater. The United States can no longer afford to keep tens of millions of acres of "public" land locked up and out of service. Some of these lands have great commercial value; others are environmental treasures. We need policies capable of distinguishing between the two.

Few Easterners realize the immense magnitude of the public lands. The federal government's holdings include about 58 million acres in Nevada, or 83% of the state's total land mass; 45 million acres in California (45% of the state); 34 million acres in Utah (65%); 33 million acres in Idaho (63%); and more than a fourth of all the land in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming.

Most public land decisions are made by two federal agencies, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, and involve matters such as the number of cows that will be allowed to graze, the areas available to off-road recreational vehicles, the prevention and fighting of forest fires, the building of local roads, the amount of timber harvesting, the leasing of land for oil and gas drilling, mineral rights and other such details. Outside the rural West, most such decisions are made by private landowners or by state and local governments. In the West, Washington acts as if it knows best.

Like other grand designs of the "progressive" era, public land policy has failed the test of time. Public lands have not been managed efficiently to maximize national benefits but instead in response to political pressures.

Past mismanagement has turned many national forests into flammable tinderboxes where intense crown fires reaching to the top of the trees — once a rarity — consume entire forests.

Rural Westerners receive significant financial benefits when the federal government pays for many of their local roads and conservation services and provides many high-paying local federal jobs. Increasingly, however, they are questioning the trade-offs involved.

Daniel Kemmis, the former Democratic speaker and minority leader of the Montana House and onetime mayor of Missoula, the state's second-largest city, has lamented that "our public lands … are burdened by a steadily more outdated regulatory and governing framework," which he describes as a "frustrating, alienating bureaucratic paternalism."

Professor Sally Fairfax of UC Berkeley observed that the creation of the national forests established "a relationship between the national government and the Western states that is usefully described as colonial." Little has changed, even as the federal system has become more and more dysfunctional.

The fact is that probably no more than 20% of the tens of millions of acres of public lands are nationally important, requiring federal oversight and protection. This includes 45 million acres of Forest Service and BLM lands in the national wilderness system and other environmentally special areas such as BLM's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.

An additional 60%, perhaps, are ordinary lands, used principally for recreational purposes, such as hiking, hunting, fishing and off-road-vehicle use. Most of the remaining public lands are useful primarily for commercial purposes, such as the timber-rich forests in the Pacific Northwest.

A rational public lands policy more suited to current and future needs would put the nationally important lands into a newly reorganized federal environmental protection system. Ordinary recreational lands would be managed at the state and local level, perhaps by transferring them to local counties. What better steward of a local recreation area than the people who live in the area?

The commercially most valuable lands, meanwhile, would be transferred to new ownership or put under long-term federal leases. Lands that have real commercial value could produce a double benefit: revenue from leases and land sales, and additional revenue from the jobs, minerals, oil, gas, lumber and other commodities the freed-up lands would produce.

It is time to end outdated federal land policies that are draining our country's wealth, tying up valuable resources in red tape and bureaucracy, and harming the environment. The transition to a new system would take time, but it might reasonably be completed over a 10-year period, the same time frame Washington is using for deficit-reduction planning.

Robert H. Nelson, who worked on public land issues in the office of the secretary of the Interior from 1975 to 1993, is a professor of environmental policy at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland. This essay is adapted from a longer article in the current issue of Policy Review.

A Leviathan of Land: Perspective on the Size of the US Gov’t In Pictures

Robert Gordon
Heritage Foundation

With the takeover of health care and frenzied government growth front and center, many are wondering when we will - if we haven’t already - reached a tipping point that fundamentally alters America. Much of what’s been done is described as a temporary fix. However, as President Reagan noted, “There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”

With this reinvigorated discussion of how big is too big, it is worthwhile to remind Americans of just how massive the Federal government already was before our current woes began. There are few more striking measures of the government’s size than the land mass of the Federal estate. The vast majority of federal lands fall within one of four agencies: the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture’s US Forest Service.

At over 258 million acres, the Bureau of Land Management alone is bigger than France and Germany combined. When combined with the other aforementioned agencies, the land area is equal that of ten European nations as shown in the accompanying graph (click it to see a larger version).

450 acres burn near historic gold mine

Staff
Hi-Desert Star

The Lost Horse Fire burns in Joshua Tree National Park Sunday evening. Ignited by an unknown cause Sunday afternoon, the flames burned through Monday and were declared contained at 8 a.m. Tuesday. (Preston Drake-Hillyard photo)

JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK — Fire burned about 450 acres over two days near Lost Horse Mine here before it was fully contained at 8 a.m. Tuesday, park officials said. “There are still a few firefighters out there — crews checking for hot spots,” Ranger Pam Tripp said Tuesday afternoon.

Twelve visitors who were hiking near the flames were evacuated by helicopter Sunday. “They got caught and weren’t able to hike out themselves,” park Chief of Interpretation Joe Zarki said.

No one was hurt in the fire, and the hikers who were evacuated were not in immediate danger, Zarki added.

Thanks to the efforts of firefighters and support staff, park Superintendent Curt Sauer said, the historic Lost Horse Mine and stamp mill escaped the blaze unscathed.

“The timely and professional response of fire crews to the Lost Horse Fire minimized effects of the fire to native vegetation and to irreplaceable historic resources,” Sauer said.

“Given that no firefighter or park visitor was hurt in the process, that’s about as good of an outcome as we can expect.”

Zarki said the Lost Horse Fire ignited shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday and was spotted by hikers. Park officials immediately began mobilizing firefighting resources when they received word of the blaze at 4:30 p.m.

The fire burned Joshua trees, piñon pines, junipers and scrub brush in a remote area of rugged hills between Geology Tour Road and Keys View Road.

Personnel and equipment from the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, CalFire, the U.S. Forest Service and San Bernardino County Fire were called in and an ambulance from Morongo Basin Ambulance was kept on hand.

Aircraft dropped water on the flames Sunday evening and resumed the job Monday morning.

Working through Sunday night, firefighters took advantage of cool evening temperatures and light winds to begin establishing a line around the flames, Zarki reported.

Ten fire trucks and one hand crew worked the fire on the ground, while two spotter aircraft and one helicopter provided air support.

Today, a single helicopter and hand crews will be on mop-up duty.

The Cap Rock Nature Trail and its parking area were used as the incident command center.

Cap Rock and the scenic drive to Keys View have reopened, but the Lost Horse Mine Road and trailhead and the Oyster Bar and Hall of Horrors parking areas remained closed Tuesday.

All other park areas and facilities remained open to visitors throughout the fire.

The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

Park officials urge visitors to build fires only in provided fire grills and never leave a campfire unattended.

Bighorn Sheep Rule Stirs Debate in West

By STEPHANIE SIMON
Wall Street Journal



A new federal policy regulating how bighorn sheep are transported across state lines has drawn criticism from state officials and environmentalists in the West. They say it threatens efforts to restore the wild sheep. Associated Press



A new policy issued by the Bush administration for managing fragile populations of bighorn sheep has angered Western environmentalists, hunters and state wildlife managers, who claim it is a move by the outgoing administration to reshape the Western landscape in favor of industry.

Federal officials say the policy -- set out in a Memorandum of Understanding with the Forest Service -- is intended to protect bighorns from disease. But critics say it threatens their decadeslong effort to restore the wild sheep population from near-extinction.

Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources with the Department of Agriculture, who helped write the bighorn policy, dismissed the complaints. Officials from several Western states have sent him letters denouncing the policy as an illegal usurpation of state authority. Mr. Rey is reviewing the comments but said he sees no reason to change course.

The new policy requires that all wild bighorn be quarantined and tested for disease by federal labs before they can be moved across state lines by relocation programs designed to protect their populations. Mr. Rey says the current protocol, which leaves testing up to the states, is "hit or miss" and thus not good for the bighorn. "If everything is fine," he said, "why do we see diseases cropping up hither, thither and yon?"

But state officials worry the new policy could slow their efforts to protect the sheep. The crux of the problem, they say, is that domestic sheep too often intrude on bighorn territory -- leading to encounters that, for reasons not fully understood, are often fatal to the wild sheep.

State wildlife workers have tried to protect bighorns by relocating them as needed. They believe holding them in quarantine while federal labs perform blood analysis would slow the process and endanger the animals' health. Wild sheep get stressed easily in captivity.

"It's absolutely unworkable," said Dale Toweill, the wildlife coordinator for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The federal policy was welcomed by the ranching industry, which raises hundreds of thousands of domestic sheep for wool and meat.

Many ranching families have grazed their sheep on federal lands for generations. In recent years, however, the U.S. Forest Service has begun to revoke some of these grazing permits, out of fear the domestic sheep transmit fatal diseases to wild bighorn. Ranchers complain that there is no scientific proof their sheep are killing the bighorn. They hope the new policy will slow efforts to move wild sheep across habitats, leaving more land open for domestic producers.

"It's finally recognizing the other side," said Stan Boyd, executive director of the Idaho Wool Growers Association. "We think it'll help."

The sheep memo follows several decisions that have angered environmental interests in the West.

Those include regulations paving the way for oil-shale exploration and increased oil and gas leasing near national parks. Some of the decisions could be reversed by the incoming Obama administration. But Mr. Rey and his critics said they don't believe sheep-testing protocols would be a priority.

The Department of Agriculture hasn't written the bighorn-testing protocol, and Mr. Rey said all decisions, including the length of any quarantine, will be open to public comment.

"This is going to be done by people with Ph.D.s in veterinary science," Mr. Rey said. "I don't see it rising to the level of political involvement."

New rule lifts ban on firearms in national parks

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — People will soon be able to carry concealed, loaded guns in most national parks and wildlife refuges.

The Bush administration said Friday it is overturning a 25-year-old federal rule that severely restricts loaded guns in national parks.

Under a rule to take effect in January, visitors will be able to carry a loaded gun into a park or wildlife refuge — but only if the person has a permit for a concealed weapon and if the state where the park or refuge is located also allows concealed firearms.

The new rule goes further than a draft proposal issued last spring and would allow concealed weapons even in parks located in states that explicitly ban the carrying of guns in state parks. Some states allow concealed weapons but also ban guns from parks.

"If you can carry (a gun) on Main Street, you are allowed to carry in a national park," said Chris Paolino. a spokesman for the Interior Department.

The Interior Department rule overturns a Reagan-era regulation that has restricted loaded guns in parks and wildlife refuges. The previous regulation required that firearms be unloaded and placed somewhere that is not easily accessible, such as in a car trunk.

Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty said the new rule respects a long tradition of states and the federal government working together on natural resource issues.

The regulation allows individuals to carry concealed firearms in federal parks and wildlife refuges to the same extent they can lawfully do so under state law, Laverty said, adding that the approach is in line with rules adopted by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Those agencies let visitors carry weapons consistent with applicable federal and state laws.

The National Rifle Association hailed the rule change, which will take effect next month before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

"We are pleased that the Interior Department recognizes the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families while enjoying America's national parks and wildlife refuges," said Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist.

The rule will restore the rights of law-abiding gun owners on federal lands and make federal law consistent with the state where the lands are located, Cox said. The NRA led efforts to change gun regulations they called inconsistent and unclear.

A group representing park rangers, retirees and conservation organizations said the rule change will lead to confusion for visitors, rangers and other law enforcement agencies.

"Once again, political leaders in the Bush administration have ignored the preferences of the American public by succumbing to political pressure, in this case generated by the National Rifle Association," said Bill Wade, president of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.

"This regulation will put visitors, employees and precious resources of the National Park System at risk. We will do everything possible to overturn it and return to a commonsense approach to guns in national parks that has been working for decades," Wade said.

The park rule will be published in the Federal Register early next week and take effect 30 days later, well before Obama takes office Jan. 20. Overturning the rule could take months or even years, since it would require the new administration to restart the lengthy rule-making process.

Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, said no decision had been made on the gun rule.

"President-elect Obama will review all eleventh-hour regulations and will address them once he is president," he said.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, hailed the new rule. Crapo and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., had organized letters to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne complaining about the gun restrictions. The letters were signed by half the Senate — 41 Republicans and nine Democrats.

"I congratulate Secretary Kempthorne for taking this stand. The rule as it has come out is what we asked for with regard to handguns," Crapo said. "It's a very, very significant improvement."

Crapo called the current rule confusing and complex and said it "literally resulted in different standards as you traveled through the same state."

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the new rule was a mistake.

"The Reagan-era rules have stood the test of time and make our national parks safe for all who visit them," Feinstein said. "The Bush administration changes will make our national parks more dangerous and will upset the delicate balance that exists between park visitors and wildlife."

Interior spokesman Paolino said the rule would not affect a ban on guns in federal buildings. Guns will still be prohibited in national icons such as Independence Hall and the Statue of Liberty, he said. Guns also will be banned in visitor centers and other buildings at national parks.

Judge scales back "Roadless Rule"

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that a Clinton-era ban against new road construction and development on millions of acres of national forest would apply only to 10 western states.

Two years ago, Judge Elizabeth Laporte invalidated a 2005 Bush administration rule that overturned the 2001 "Roadless Rule," which protected 58.5 million acres of federal land in about 40 states.

But in August, a federal judge in Wyoming invalidated President Bill Clinton's Roadless Rule, leading the Bush administration to request that the two judges modify their conflicting rulings.

In response, Laporte reduced the geographic scope of her 2006 ruling.

The move is only a temporary fix. Federal appeals courts in San Francisco and Denver are expected to rule on the case next year, and road construction rules also could change under President-elect Barack Obama's administration.

Environmental groups that challenged the Bush administration's repeal of the Roadless Rule urged the government Tuesday to not weaken protections for about 13.6 million acres of roadless forests in the states no longer covered by Laporte's 2006 ruling.

Forest Service officials in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Grijalva: Bush policies bad for federal public lands

Tucson Region




By Tony Davis
Arizona Daily Star




Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ)



The Bush administration mounted a "concerted strategy" to reduce protections for federal public lands and to open them to all types of industry, a Tucson congressman says in a new report.

The report lists more than 40 actions by federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management that Rep. Raúl Grijalva says harmed public lands.

They often allowed mining, timber and other private industry to exploit resources at the environment's expense, he claims.

Grijalva, a Democrat, is a congressional leader on public lands issues, as he chairs the National Parks, Forest and Public Lands subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.

However, Bush administration officials and agency managers have generally defended their actions, calling them efforts to restore balance to public lands policy after eight years of Clinton administration policies that more commonly sided with environmentalists. Federal officials have also cited budget pressures in explaining some of the decisions.

Here are capsule accounts of some of the actions criticized in Grijalva's report, their effects on Arizona, and the federal agencies' responses:

Border fence
Grijalva's report criticized the Department of Homeland Security for repeatedly invoking a 2005 federal law allowing it to waive environmental laws — such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act — to build a 670-mile border fence.

The congressman is co-sponsoring a bill to rescind provisions of that law. Grijalva and environmental groups say the fence blocks wildlife movements and fragments habitat crucial for the survival of dozens of imperiled species, including jaguars, wolves and pronghorn antelope.

Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said the fence, now about half-finished, is needed to block the illegal entry of terrorists, to impede drug smuggling, human smuggling and gang activity, and to counteract the environmental effects of illegal immigration.

Chertoff has used the law four times to waive dozens of environmental laws and regulations to build nearly 500 miles of fence, including segments along more than 200 miles of Arizona's border with Mexico.

Grand Canyon uranium mining
Grijalva has pushed through a measure to prevent uranium mining on 1 million acres adjoining Grand Canyon National Park for a year. But Interior Department officials have refused to withdraw the area from mining, and they are fighting to repeal underlying regulations.

Two potential uranium-mining exploration sites are being drilled on BLM land north of the national park. Environmental groups are suing to force the Interior Department to withdraw those lands, on the grounds that the radioactivity from the uranium could leak into the groundwater or the Colorado River running through the Grand Canyon.

There's a long history of uranium mining north of the Canyon, and it is "very responsible mining," counters Scott Florence, director of BLM's Arizona Strip office. It's all underground, with "a very small footprint" on the surface, Florence says. "They are not a big open-pit mine."

Loaded-gun parks
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has proposed a regulation allowing visitors to national parks and wildlife refuges to carry loaded, concealed weapons if they have proper permits. Today, visitors can pack only unloaded guns. The new rules would affect Arizona and other states that already allow concealed weapons in state parks.

Grijalva says the new rule would cause widespread confusion among gun owners because many national parks are located in two or more states with different gun rules.

Interior says it wants to respect states' ability to determine who may possess firearms within their boundaries. The National Rifle Association says park visitors should be allowed to carry guns for self-defense.

Seven retired National Park Service directors opposed the proposal, telling Kempthorne it would impair park rangers' ability to protect people and natural resources.

Off-road vehicles
Grijalva says environmentally harmful off-road vehicle use is out of control and growing rapidly on public lands. The vehicles have damaged cultural sites, disturbed wildlife habitat and destroyed private property, Grijalva says.

"Irresponsible off-roading has become such a menace that it is now the single greatest threat to American landscapes," a retired Forest Service official, Jack Gregory, testified at a congressional hearing in April.

A Tucson BLM official says the agency is trying to keep off-road vehicles under control, using trained volunteers on motorcycles and ATVs to go on patrol, pick up trash and talk to off-roaders about proper use.

"As more people are out on public lands, our challenges will always be there," said Brian Bellew, BLM's Tucson manager. "But we are coming up with much better means of dealing with those resource conflicts."

Air quality in national parks
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changing air quality regulations to make it less likely that emissions from new power plants near national parks would be in violation.

Grijalva says the regulation, still pending, would let companies seeking to build plants near national parks, including the Grand Canyon and Saguaro National Park, circumvent congressionally established pollution limits.

EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said the rule is part of an agency program to prevent air quality degradation in national parks and would not change the level of emissions allowed in clean-air areas.

Roadless rule
Throughout President Bush's tenure, federal officials have sought to overturn a last-minute rule instituted by then-President Bill Clinton that would ban logging, road building and development on 58 million acres of national forests and grasslands. That includes 420,000 Coronado National Forest acres in Southern Arizona.

In 2005, the Forest Service approved a new rule allowing state governments to petition federal officials to exempt these forest lands in their states from wilderness designation.

There have been conflicting lower-court rulings on whether the decision failed to consider environmental impacts. The decisions are under appeal.

Table Mountain back in wilderness bill

By Mike Gervais
Inyo Register

With the Eastern Sierra/Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act scheduled to go to the Senate on Thursday, the bill’s co-authors have reincorporated Table Mountain into the mix.

At the request of the U.S. Forest Service, Table Mountain has been added back into the Wild Heritage Act by co-authors Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita). The addition of Table Mountain, which was removed from the bill earlier this summer as part of a compromise that allowed for the 9,000-acre White Mountain proposed wilderness, has some on edge, as recent maps include several cabins in the proposed wilderness area.

The residents who lease property that includes nine cabins near Table Mountain worked feverishly Monday to contact local legislators and express their concerns about the inclusion of the cabins and the relatively short time-frame in which they had to submit comments.

That work paid off, with the Forest Service reporting Monday afternoon that it was in the process of re-drawing the wilderness map for Table Mountain.

Table Mountain was added to the Wild Heritage Act sometime around July 16, but maps were not made available to the public until the week of July 21 and the U.S. Forest Service, which leases the cabins to private individuals, did not receive the updated maps until last Thursday, leaving only three days for that entity to comment before the Sept. 8 comment deadline.

Those maps showed six or seven private-use cabins inside the wilderness designation. At least three of the cabins that are located inside the wilderness addition are only 50-150 feet from the boundary, which Bishop resident Bob Klug, who leases property and one of the cabins from the U.S. Forest Service, said didn’t follow any geographic or topographical line.

“A friend of mine who owns the pack station showed me the maps on Saturday,” Klug said. “The maps had been changed on the 25th of July, and none of the cabin owners who could be losing their cabins were notified.”

With comments regarding the Wild Heritage Act due Monday, Klug spent a busy weekend tracking down the lease-holders of the eight other cabins in the area to warn them of the comment deadline and encourage them to speak up on the issue.

He was able to speak with Boxer Legislative Aid Tom Bohigian, who said the inclusion of the cabins may have been an oversight. “He tried to reassure me that they have no intent of shutting down anyone’s cabins or any roads,” Klug said. But he added he won’t rest easy until he sees something in writing that protects his cabin.

Klug said that when he contacted McKeon’s staffers, he was told to submit any comments or questions via e-mail.

McKeon Press Secretary Lindsay Mask, however, told The Inyo Register that the inclusion of the cabins “was a mapping error. Mr. McKeon is 100 percent aware of it, and private land will not be included.”

“The remapping they’re having done right now excludes the cabins, the water systems and the electrical,” said U.S. Forest Service Public Information Officer Nancy Upham.

There has been much discussion regarding the inclusion or exclusion of Table Mountain since the Wild Heritage Act was proposed in June. The scenic area was initially proposed as an addition to the bill, then tabled in favor of 9,000 acres of wilderness in the White Mountains, then ultimately included in the wilderness in July at the behest of the U.S. Forest Service.

“During the meetings in Bishop (held in early July to gather citizen input about the Wild Heritage Act) they had dropped Table Mountain from the wilderness to appease the anti-wilderness people,” said Klug.

“Table Mountain was an area that was added in later on a Forest Service recommendation,” said Paul McFarland of the Friends of the Inyo. “We certainly didn’t push to have anyone’s cabin included in wilderness,” he added, speaking for the Friends.

McFarland said the inclusion of the cabins could have been an easy mistake to make.
“Things like this are going to come forward more and more, and they need to be changed,” said McFarland.

If the Wild Heritage Act was passed into law including the Table Mountain cabins, the dwellings would have most likely been taken over by the Forest Service.

“Historically, you cannot have a private dwelling in the Wilderness,” Klug said.

According to McFarland, “I don’t know if there are any leased cabins in wilderness, but I do know there are ranger cabins.”

Phone calls seeking comment from Boxer’s staffers and the Advocates for Access to Public Lands were not returned as of press time Monday.

Members of the Inyo County Board of Supervisors were unavailable for comment on Monday, as they were in budget hearing meetings.

Idaho's 'roadless rule' clears another hurdle

Idaho Statesman

State and federal officials on Monday released the final environmental impact statement for the Forest Service's "roadless rule," which will protect 8.9 million acres of federal lands from most road building and development.

The proposal designates 250 roadless areas and establishes five management themes that essentially keep roadless areas intact but allow limited logging, mining and temporary roads to reduce fire danger.

The new roadless management plan, which evolved out of a series of lawsuits and collaborative agreements from federal, state and county agencies and interest groups, could become final in 30 days, depending on whether any lawsuits arise.

"The Idaho roadless rule represents the first time a state and its citizens had a direct voice in creating a plan for resolving an issue of national importance," Lt. Gov. Jim Risch said.

The roadless rule originated from a Clinton administration decision to curtail logging and road building on roadless lands.

Idaho was the first state to sue to block that rule and is now the first state to develop its own plan that has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Roadless rule is tossed out again

Western state set to rewrite rules on use of 9.3 million acres of public land

Associated Press

CHEYENNE, WYO. -- A federal judge in Wyoming has overturned a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly 60 million acres of national forest, extending a long-running dispute over U.S. Forest Service rules for large sections of undeveloped land.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer's ruling on Tuesday is the latest turn in a legal battle over the Clinton administration rule that limited logging and other development in roadless areas that make up nearly a third of national forest land.

Brimmer issued a permanent injunction against the so-called "roadless rule," saying that the ban was enacted in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act.

"The Forest Service, in an attempt to bolster an outgoing President's environmental legacy, rammed through an environmental agenda that itself violates the country's well-established environmental laws," Brimmer wrote.

The ruling reflects a similar decision Brimmer issued in 2003 in response to a lawsuit filed by Wyoming challenging the roadless rule. Brimmer's 2003 ruling was rendered moot when the Bush administration decided not to appeal and instead issued its own rules for roadless areas.

Conservation groups and attorneys general from Oregon, Washington, California and New Mexico later challenged the Bush policy, which required governors to petition the federal government to protect roadless areas in their states.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte in San Francisco reinstated the 2001 rule created by the Clinton administration. That prompted Wyoming to renew its complaint in federal district court.

On Tuesday, environmentalists vowed to appeal Brimmer's ruling to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, while also downplaying the scope of the decision.

Mike Anderson, an attorney with The Wilderness Society, said it was his opinion that the California decision was still in effect.

"It is not in any way overturned or compromised by Judge Brimmer's decision in Wyoming today," Anderson said. "What it does do is create two conflicting court decisions in different federal courts, different states, both issuing decisions with nationwide impact."

Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg praised Brimmer's ruling, saying the injunction was appropriate "in light of the potential harm the roadless rule poses to our national forests due to beetle infestation and forest fires."

"We anticipate an appeal by either the United States or one or more of the interveners," Salzburg said. "As such, we consider the matter still in litigation."

Attempts to reach the Forest Service for comment Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.

Observers said it was unclear whether Brimmer's ruling would have any effect on the two states -- Idaho and Colorado -- that are working their way through the Bush administration's policy for setting aside roadless areas. Neither state has completed the process.

"I would say it further clouds the legal background for those states' rule making," Anderson said.

In Idaho, federal officials said last month that they hoped to issue a final draft rule for the state's roadless backcountry in September and send it to President Bush for approval. Idaho is home to 9.3 million acres of roadless lands.

"My assumption is they will still proceed with rule making for Idaho," said Jonathan Oppenheimer, of the Boise-based Idaho Conservation League.

Forest Service pulls Smokey Bear ad

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) — Smokey the Bear was unfair.

The Forest Service said Tuesday it has canceled a public service ad in which the iconic bear warned that sparks from off-road vehicles could start a wildfire.

Off-road groups had complained that the ad sent the wrong message that riders operating ATVs in a legal manner can start forest fires.

"The mutual goal of the Forest Service, National Association of State Foresters and the Ad Council is to spread Smokey's enduring message of preventing wildfires to all forest users," the Forest Service said in a statement Tuesday.

Because the ATV ad was interpreted as unfairly targeting off-road riders, the Forest Service has requested that TV stations and other media outlets that had broadcast the ad discontinue it, the Forest Service said.

The BlueRibbon Coalition, an Idaho-based group that advocates for off-road vehicles, hailed the ad's withdrawal.

"I honestly believe the agencies had intended to create a positive message regarding safe use of ATVs on public lands," said Don Amador, the group's Western representative.

Whatever its intent, the ad "incorrectly conveyed to the ATV rider that the best way for them to prevent wildfires was to stay at home. Instead, the ad should have encouraged the use of Forest Service-approved spark arresters and limiting travel to approved routes and areas," Amador said.

Forest Service officials said the ad was not intended to imply that all ATV use causes fires — rather that fire prevention is always important, especially at a time of high fire danger.

The Forest Service supports responsible use of ATVs on public land, said Jim Bedwell, the agency's director of recreation. ATV riders must use spark arresters — which restrict sparks from escaping an exhaust system — when operating off-road on public lands.

EDITORIAL: At the time, they said he was crazy

Government loses case involving late Nevada rancher

Opinion
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Wayne Hage and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho

Back in the 1980s, it became an article of faith among well-meaning "environmentalists" that grazing cattle on arid Western lands serves to "destroy fragile ecosystems."

Western ranchers presented evidence that desert plants developed in an ecosystem that needs large ungulate grazers to churn their seeds into the soil, to fertilize wetlands, to carry moisture into arid valleys and thus benefit tortoise populations -- which is why more tortoises are found on grazed land than ungrazed.

The ranchers argued that grazing prevents the buildup of excess tinder that can make range fires more frequent and severe, that game species profit from the ranchers' water improvements and efforts at predator control.

The forces seeking to remove mankind from the land scoffed at such arguments. They canceled grazing "permits" left and right.

The U.S. Forest Service ordered that Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, in one example, could use "only hand tools" to trim back trees clogging the canals that had brought water to his 125-year-old, 700,000-acre Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada.

In 1991, Wayne Hage sued. On Friday, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith ruled Mr. Hage was right, and the Forest Service was wrong.

The judge awarded more than $4.2 million to the plaintiffs, ruling the U.S. Forest Service committed an unconstitutional "taking" of his water rights during their decades-long dispute over livestock grazing.

Judge Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of a man considered one of the leaders of the 1980s "Sagebrush Rebellion" -- an additional $4.4 million. And the government is also ordered to pay the Hage family's legal costs -- another $4 million.

"The hand tools requirement prevented all effective ditch maintenance, as it cannot be seriously argued that the work normally done by caterpillars and back hoes could be accomplished with hand tools over thousands of acres," the judge wrote. The implementation of the hand tools requirement "was based solely on hostility to plaintiffs," the judge ruled.

"It sends a pretty important message to the government that if you screw with a small ranching family and put them out of business, you have to pay big bucks," exults Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed his lawsuit, 17 years ago.

Does it?

It would be nice to ask Mr. Hage whether he feels vindicated. We can't. He's dead.

The 17-year federal lawsuit took longer to prevail than either Mr. Hage -- who died in 2006 -- or his widow, the late former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho, could wait.

And while $4 million or $8 million sounds like a lot of money, they're notably smaller sums than that $28 million Mr. Hage sought -- and that was in 1991 dollars.

That leads Cliven Bundy -- the last active cattle rancher in Clark County, who has fought his own battles with federal bureaucrats trying to drive him and his cattle off the Mesquite allotment by challenging both his grazing and his water rights -- to question just how big a "win" Friday's ruling really is.

"I don't think he gained anything there," said Mr. Bundy Tuesday afternoon. "I think they just stole his water for a cheap price."

Mr. Hage's daughter, Ramona Morrison, is more optimistic.

"Whether it's a permanent or a temporary taking is not clear" -- a matter that may be cleared up in a post-trial conference Friday, says Mrs. Morrison. "At the time, Dad was told he was crazy to try and do this, so to come out with this kind of a ruling after all this time, while we were not surprised that there was compensation, is quite remarkable. ... Dad plowed a trail through 6 feet of snow with this case."

Nevada rancher wins property rights award

Forest Service took
his water rights,
judge says



Associated Press
Los Angeles Times




E. Wayne Hage 1936–2006

RENO, NEV. -- A federal judge has awarded more than $4.2 million to the estate of late Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service committed a constitutional "taking" of his water rights during a decades-long dispute over livestock grazing on federal land.

Calling the conflict a "drama worthy of a tragic opera and heroic characters," U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of one of the leaders of the so-called "Sagebrush Rebellion" during the 1980s.

Hage's lawyer estimates the interest dating to 1991 to be an additional $4.4 million, which he said would make it the largest award ever in such a case.

"It sends a pretty important message to the government that if you screw with a small ranching family and put them out of business, you have to pay big bucks," said Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in 1991.

Smith, based in Washington D.C., ruled that government restrictions severely reducing water flows to Hage's land "deprived them of the water they needed for irrigation, making the ranch unviable."

"The court finds the government's actions had a severe economic impact on plaintiffs and the governments' actions rose to the level of a taking," he said in Friday's ruling.

"Whereas real property ownership is defined by a right to exclude others from that property, water ownership is defined by the right to access and use that water."

Like in similar cases in the past, the judge said the cancellation of Hage's federal grazing permit as a result of overgrazing and trespassing did not in itself amount to a "taking" prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That's because a grazing permit is "a license, not a contract or property interest," he said.

However, Smith said the taking occurred when the Forest Service -- apparently motivated by "hostility" toward Hage -- made it impossible for him to maintain the irrigation ditches.

The ditches were regulated under the 1866 Ditch Act, which was enacted one year after the Pine Creek Ranch was founded in central Nevada. They brought water to the sprawling 7,000-acre ranch in central Nevada that Hage bought in 1978 and the 700,000 acres of national forest land where he grazed his cattle -- an area equal to about two-thirds of the size of Rhode Island.

Ed Monnig, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said Tuesday there had been no decision made yet on whether to appeal.

"We're aware of Friday's court decision and our agency is now considering the implications of this ruling and carefully weighing options," Monnig said.

Hage, who was married to the late U.S. Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage at the time of his death in 2006, first filed a claim seeking $28 million in 1991. He said in an interview in 2004 that his case "could have a dramatic impact on Western state's rights and the proper jurisdiction of federal lands in the West."

"It's the first time in nearly a century that someone has effectively challenged the government over who owns the range rights and water rights out here on these federal lands," he told The Associated Press.

Hage had argued the proliferation of willows, pinion, juniper and other vegetation in the ditches over the years resulted in a significant reduction in the flow of water to his pastures. He said that was primarily because of the Forest Service's demand that he maintain the ditches using nothing more than hand tools.

"Extensive evidence has convinced the court that but for the government actions plaintiffs would have had the water in which they had a vested right," the judge wrote.

Bono Mack Acts To Preserve Scenic Lands

California Political Desk
The California Chronicle





A view looking at Highway 74 from the trailhead for the South Fork of the San Jacinto River. The area is being considered for the nation's highest level of protection under a bill by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs.
The Press-Enterprise/William Wilson Lewis III




Washington, D.C. – Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack´s (CA-45) legislation that would preserve over 190,000 acres of scenic desert, forest, and river areas throughout California's 45th District. Broadly supported by local community leaders, elected officials, and local business owners, Bono Mack´s bill – H.R. 3682, the California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act – passed by voice vote today on the House Floor. The bill will now be considered in the U.S. Senate.

"I am thrilled that we are one step closer to preserving some of the most scenic and environmentally sensitive areas in our District," said Bono Mack. "Throughout history, these wild lands have drawn people to our region, and I am pleased that this legislation will help ensure that families and individuals can continue to enjoy the natural beauty of our desert, river and forest areas for years to come.

"Through a collaborative process, this bill was carefully crafted to meet the diverse needs of our community – from Native American tribes to those who enjoy hiking and biking throughout the area. I am thankful for the time and input of so many local groups and individuals that has brought us to this point.

"As our region experiences rapid population growth, it is critical that we protect these lands that have been such an important part of our cultural heritage. Years ago, President Gerald Ford recognized this need when he signed legislation that created over 400,000 acres of wilderness in what is now Joshua Tree National Park. I am proud that the California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act continues the dream of President Ford to protect our spectacular natural scenery for future generations."

The California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act would create four protected wilderness areas, add 31 miles of rivers to the National Wild and Scenic River system, and expand the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, which was created legislatively by Bono Mack in 2000. The bill would protect over 190,000 acres of wilderness areas, including in Joshua Tree National Park, Cahuilla Mountain, the San Bernardino National Forest and the Pinto Mountains. The legislation is also written to clarify the ability of the U.S. Forest Service to effectively fight fires; protect renewable energy potential; and continue access to for visitors to enjoy all that the region has to offer, according to Bono Mack.