Western Watersheds Project to Federal Court: BLM Violates Law With Utah Grazing Permits

Western Watersheds Project has asked the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City to cancel 149 public-lands grazing permits issued by the Bureau of Land Management in northern Utah, saying the permits violate federal law. The permits, issued by the agency in 2001, cover 77 allotments on nearly 1.5 million acres of BLM lands in Tooele, Rich and Box Elder counties. These lands provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, including elk, deer, sage grouse and cutthroat trout.

WWP claims the BLM failed to monitor and record the impacts of livestock grazing on these species and their habitat as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The conservation group says the agency ignored the data of independent scientists and its own staff that revealed grazing impacts such as soil erosion, habitat destruction and water-quality degradation in streams.

"The science is in, and it is clear:  grazing in arid places such as Utah takes a heavy environmental toll," said Dr. John Carter, an ecologist in Logan who directs WWP's operations in Utah.  "Cows destroy streams, grasses and soils, which, in turn, harms all kinds of birds, fish and wildlife." "We presented BLM with detailed reports showing this damage, but they ignored it and said grazing has no significant environmental impact," Carter added. "This is not only bad science but also a violation of federal law." WWP's motion charges that BLM has repeatedly failed its obligation under NEPA to "study, develop and discuss appropriate alternatives" to "status quo" grazing.

"Never did BLM consider a reduction of livestock numbers for the vast majority of the allotments," the court document reads. "Never did BLM consider excluding livestock from sensitive or unsuitable areas of the allotments."

"We are asking the federal court to uphold our nation's environmental laws, since BLM will not do it," said WWP executive director Jon Marvel. "In this case, the BLM swept under the rug any consideration of the harms of livestock grazing or alternatives to protect our vulnerable public lands." WWP's motion is the latest chapter in a lawsuit filed in May 2002. In that filing, Carter noted that only eight of 32 stream sites assessed in Box Elder County were determined to be in proper functioning condition, while the remaining sites were degraded.

Moreover, of 208 springs believed to exist on BLM lands in Box Elder County, none were assessed. The BLM failed to review the sites despite a record of decision and rangeland program summary for the area that revealed 124 springs and 16 perennial streams to be in danger of dewatering and loss due to livestock grazing and trampling.

WWP submitted detailed monitoring and inventory reports as well as extensive scientific studies cataloging a broad swath of environmental degradation from livestock grazing.

"The BLM failed to provide an analysis of these springs and streams and failed to resolve how its current assessments could find such a small number of 'nonfunctional' streams in the face of its analysis in 1986," said Carter.

The federal lands under BLM management in Rich, Tooele and Box Elder counties share many geographical and ecological features. The lands are dominated by sagebrush and salt desert shrub ecosystems wholly unsuited to livestock grazing.

Historically, public lands in northern Utah have provided sustainable habitat for a variety of fish and wildlife species, including Lahontan cutthroat trout listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Scientific studies have long documented the adverse effects of livestock grazing on these lands, the lower elevations of which receive less than 12 inches of precipitation per year on average. Cattle typically gather around shady, streamside riparian areas, denuding vegetation, eliminating shady cover over streams, trampling stream banks, filling streams with sediment and fouling the water with fecal contamination.

A court hearing and decision on WWP's motion are expected by this summer.