NW Grazing Ruling

NW Grazing Ruling

Susan Allen
Susan Allen

 

Okay cows no more muddy streams. But whose responsibility is it to stop cattle from drinking water and who should  determine how long can cattle graze in a National Forest? Questions typically pitting environmentalist and ranchers against each other but in a recent Oregon grazing ruling both sides said  they came out winners.  Good PR or are bridges being built over steelhead streams?  I’m Susan Allen, welcome to Open Range I’ll be back with more on Judge Haggarty’s ruling. U.S.  District Judge Ancer Haggerty has determined that grazing in  the Malheur National Forest has hurt steelhead habitat but he didn’t point his finger at the ranching community rather gave the U.S. Forest Service a slap on the wrist for a grazing plan that allowed livestock to damage steelhead habitat over nearly half a million acres along more than 300 miles of streams in the John Day Basin in Eastern Oregon. In the Judges view, the Forest Service failed to monitor and notify ranchers when the cows needed to be moved. Environmental Groups like the Oregon Natural Desert Association were tickled pink with the judges pronouncement, ah but so were ranchers who had argued that the Forest Service had violated the Endangered Species Act and that if the original grazing plan had been monitored , sensitive steelhead  streams wouldn’t have been overgrazed. In the end, Judge Haggerty, put in the precarious position between divergent groups, apparently created an atmosphere where ranchers , environmentalists and the federal agencies had to actually  work together to come up with a new plan and a foot print or rather, “hoof print”  for the future.
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