March 20, 2003

By Todd Adams

Challis Messenger

Challis, Idaho

http://www.challismessenger.com

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Attorneys for Western Watersheds Project (WWP) and the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) have filed a new motion in U.S. District Court in Boise to close eight livestock grazing allotments in order to protect wolves in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) for the 2003 grazing season and in "future years."

The motion asks Judge Lynn Winmill to close the eight allotments with prior and potential future wolf-livestock conflicts to grazing until the SNRA and Forest Service have fully complied with federal laws to review grazing practices and impacts on wolves.

A previous injunction Winmill granted July 19, 2002, to prohibit federal agencies from undertaking wolf "control actions" (including killing wolves that kill livestock) expired at the end of the 2002 grazing season.

A hearing on the new motion has been scheduled for 8:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 1 before Judge Winmill at the U.S. District Court in Pocatello.

"Now is the deadline to close these allotments or stop killing wolves in the SNRA," said WWP Executive Director Jon Marvel in a February 25 news release.

"Even with the judge's ruling last year, the Forest Service has done nothing to alter livestock grazing in the SNRA to help keep sheep off the wolves' dinner table and wolves off the Wildlife Services' hit list," Linn Kincannon of ICL said in the news release. "We will continue to press for wolf protection."

New motion In their new motion filed February 21, the environmental groups note the Forest Service defendants still have not issued any new analyses for any of the grazing allotments as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the 1995 Recisions Act and/or the SNRA Organic Act.

Congress passed the 1995 Recisions Act to compel the Forest Service to set up a schedule to conduct NEPA environmental analysis on each grazing allotment in the National Forest System, which it did in 1995.

In his June 13 decision in favor of the environmental groups, Judge Winmill noted the Forest Service conceded it had not completed the NEPA analysis on seven allotments within the SNRA by the dates specified on that schedule.

Attorneys for the SNRA and Forest Service noted January 10 that the Forest Service will not meet its proposed deadline of January 2003 for completion of analyses on the first two grazing allotments, the Upper and Lower East Fork allotments.

"Even though the Court has not yet issued an Order directing a schedule for completion of the analyses," notes Deborah Ferguson, assistant U.S. Attorney, the Forest Service "has been diligently pursuing completion" by January of 2003. "However, due to assignment of Sawtooth National Forest personnel to other pressing matters," the Forest Service does not expect the first analyses to be completed until March of 2003.

Plaintiffs' attorneys Laird Lucas and William Eddie ask Winmill to consider new information in granting a new injunction prohibiting grazing on the allotments. They also ask for a Court-ordered timetable for reviews of the allotments under NEPA and the SNRA Organic Act "and injunctive relief either closing the identified problem allotments and/or prohibiting wolf control actions relating to any wolf/livestock conflicts on the SNRA."

New information

The new information submitted by WWP and ICL includes:

Evidence that wolves are again reoccupying the SNRA and surrounding area where prior wolf packs were "exterminated."

In a third declaration submitted to the court, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologist Roy Heberger states that one and possibly two pairs of wolves are known to be in the same areas occupied by the Whitehawk and other packs shot and killed due to conflicts with livestock.

"It is vital that the current wolves and possible incipient packs in and around the SNRA be protected from control actions, which would only perpetuate this substantial impairment of SNRA values," Heberger writes. "It is certainly foreseeable that the wolves now known to be present in and around the SNRA will come into conflicts with livestock in coming months, absent significant changes in livestock grazing management on the SNRA, which apparently has not occurred yet."

Forest Service monitoring reports for the 2002 grazing season that show livestock have strayed outside allotment boundaries and also into areas with past wolf activity where the environmental groups say "wolf/livestock conflicts are likely to reoccur."

A statement by the groups that the Forest Service "has made no progress, it appears," in completing analyses of the Upper and Lower East Fork Salmon allotments as required.

"This means that, undoubtedly, the Forest Service will not complete new analysis and permits for the East Fork allotments before the 2003 grazing year," attorney Lucas writes.

"The lack of any meaningful environmental review means that grazing will continue on these allotments in the same environmentally-degrading manner as in past years," writes Lucas.

In his latest motion, Lucas submitted to the court Notices of Non-Compliance issued to permittees on the East Fork allotments, "documenting that overgrazing occurred in several riparian areas in 2002 in violation of permit terms and conditions imposed in order to protect listed fish species from grazing impacts."

Ed Waldapfel, public affairs officer for the Sawtooth National Forest, said Forest Service personnel cannot comment on details of the case since it's still under litigation. But Waldapfel said the Forest Service will meet its self-imposed deadline of providing the environmental analyses to the court on the allotments by the end of March.

In their news release, WWP and ICL contend that the Forest Service has not met a "court-ordered timetable" for environmental reviews of eight allotments identified as "problem" areas for grazing in the SNRA.

"These allotments are primarily in the Sawtooth Valley, where sheep operators have had a long history of management violations," according to the news release.

"Last year, sheep were repeatedly found in areas that are closed to grazing. The discovery reinforces WWP and ICL's claim that many SNRA grazing permittees violated the terms and conditions of their permits in 2001 and 2002," the news release states.

Court documents Information on violations of grazing permit terms and conditions by three permittees was obtained by WWP and ICL under the Freedom of Information Act and are included in separate court documents accompanying the groups' renewed motion to shut down grazing on the eight SNRA grazing allotments.

An August 20, 2002, Notice of Non-Compliance was mailed by Lisa Stoeffler, SNRA deputy ranger, to the Baker Ranch Partnership of Eddie and Junior Baker. Two violations of the Bakers' 2002 grazing permit, both on August 8 were: over 20 cow/calf pairs and two bulls with the Baker brand grazing near Little Redfish Lake, a drainage that is supposed to be "totally rested from grazing," and 10 head of cattle grazing at Fourth of July Lake, which is outside the Lower East Fork Allotment boundary.

Deborah Cooper, SNRA ranger, mailed an October 18, 2002, letter stating that a November 19, 2001, Notice of Non-Compliance had been issued to Wayne and Melodie Baker and Richard and Betty Baker "for failure to achieve riparian proper use standards" on the Big Lake Creek pasture. Riparian proper use standards were not achieved there again by September 26, 2002, so Cooper informed the Bakers that their "permitted season will be shortened under suspension for the next two years, to August 20. This represents a 10 percent reduction of season from your average required removal date for the past three years," Cooper wrote.

A third Notice of Non-Compliance was mailed by Cooper December 5, 2002, to John Faulkner of Faulkner Land & Livestock Co., Inc. stating that SNRA staff had found evidence of grazing in the Smiley Creek drainage on September 20, which was supposed to be rested during the 2002 season.

Faulkner's sheep had been radio-collared to track their 2002 movements under an experimental monitoring program, and under the terms of his grazing permit, sheep could be trailed down Smiley Creek to a corral, but not grazed there for any extended period.

Junior Baker declined to comment, while Wayne Baker and John Faulkner had not returned phone calls by Messenger press time.

In the past three years, WWP and ICL say at least 30 wolves have been killed or removed from areas in or near the SNRA due to conflicts with livestock. "Some 4,470 sheep and 2,500 cattle are allowed to graze on 28 Forest Service allotments in the SNRA despite the presence of wolves," the groups' news release states.

Complete records on the case, number 01-389, can be accessed on the U.S. District Court's website at http://www.id.uscourts.gov.

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View court records:

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Case No. 01-389