Big Victory on grazing in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area-
News Release Western Watersheds Project
On Tuesday February 7, 2006 Chief judge B. Lynn
Winmill of the United States district court for the
District of Idaho issued an order awarding summary
judgment to Western Watersheds Project in litigation
affecting four large sheep grazing allotments and
150,000 acres on the Sawtooth National Recreation
area and the Ketchum ranger district of the Sawtooth
National Forest.
In a decision that will have ramifications for the
administration of livestock grazing on National
Forests throughout Region 4 of the Forest Service
and quite probably beyond, Judge Winmill determined
that the Sawtooth National Forest violated both the
National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the
National Environmental policy Act (NEPA) in issuing
two major grazing decision affecting four domestic
sheep grazing allotments and over 150,000 acres of
public lands north of Ketchum, Idaho. Two of the
three grazing permittees affected by this legal
decision are among the largest sheep ranchers on
public lands in the United States: John Faulkner and
Lava Lake Land and Livestock.
Judge Winmill overturned the Forest Service
decisions for violations of NFMA and NEPA for
failing to analyze at a site specific level the
capability of these lands to support domestic
livestock. The Forest Service had determined in the
Sawtooth Forest Plan issued in 2003 that between 13%
and 25% of the four allotments were capable of
supporting domestic sheep grazing; however, The
agency failed to use that information when it
completed an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as
the site specific analysis of those same four
allotments effectively hiding and ignoring their own
data from the Forest Plan.
Judge Winmill also determined that the Forest
Service violated NFMA by failing to analyze the
effects of livestock grazing on capability and
suitability for two Sawtooth Forest Management
Indicator Species (MIS): pileated woodpecker and
sage grouse.
The Judge also determined that the Forest Service
violated NFMA by not analyzing the impacts of its
chimerical adaptive management scheme which was
dependent on monitoring that was never described in
any way in the EIS or the two Records Of
Decision.
In conclusion, Judge Winmill granted WWP Summary
Judgment on all major legal claims made in the
litigation.
The parties to this case will now file briefing on
interim remedies and possible injunctive relief that
will be in effect pending completion of a legally
sufficient analysis and new grazing decisions that
will comply with NFMA and NEPA.
Possible outcomes of that new round of briefing
include no sheep grazing on the four allotments
until the Forest Service complies with the law.
This decision will require the Forest Service, when
analyzing and authorizing livestock grazing, to take
a hard look at whether lands included in grazing
allotments are capable of supporting that use,
something that the agency has never done before even
though required by law to do so since
1976 !
WWP would like to express thanks to our lead
attorney in this important victory, Laurie Rule of
the Boise Office of Advocates For The West (http://www.advocateswest.org)
for her exceptionally thorough work in this case and
to Laird Lucas who oversaw all of Laurie’s great
work.
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/