Judge rules in southwest Idaho grazing case

BOISE — A federal judge has directed the Bureau of Land Management to rethink the way it manages grazing across thousands of acres of southern Idaho, especially the impact livestock have on sage grouse and other threatened species.

But Thursday's decision by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill falls far short of the all-out ban on grazing sought by conservationists on 625,000 acres of the so-called Jarbidge Resource Area, which stretches across southwestern Idaho and Nevada's northeast corner.

The ruling stems from motions filed last year by the Western Watersheds Project, a Hailey, Idaho, group that has battled for decades to roll back cattle grazing across Idaho and other western states.

Western Watersheds asked the court to ban grazing on 36 allotments, none of which suffered any damage during the Murphy Complex fire in 2007. Ignited by lightning, that wildfire burned for three weeks and became the largest single fire ever fought by the Idaho BLM at nearly 1,000 square miles, leaving dead wildlife and cattle and scorched prime habitat for sage grouse.

Winmill denied the outright ban and a handful of other motions sought by the group to curtail grazing. But he concluded that grazing is a key factor in the decline of species such as sage grouse, pygmy rabbit and slickspot peppergrass, and that the agency must give more consideration in the future to the impact grazing has on those species and their habitat.

Western Watersheds attorney Laird Lucas cheered the ruling, saying it should force a wholesale shift in the way the agency manages grazing across the West.

"Science has been overlooked in the past," Lucas said. "It's true we did not get a complete halt to grazing like we had asked for in this area. But for the BLM to have to handle grazing differently and follow science, we think, is on the way to good policy."

The ruling, which followed 10 days of testimony, rejected the group's claim that the agency violated federal environmental laws by failing to consider sage grouse when it approved grazing and the repair of 490 miles of fencing in sensitive habitat areas not burned in the Murphy Complex fire. The fire is blamed for destroying 70 prime breeding grounds for sage grouse.

Winmill, who has presided over other cases involving the threatened, chicken-sized bird, also denied a motion to impose restrictions on grazing allotments litigated in a previous federal case and a separate request that the BLM do another environmental impact study on the lands charred in the 2007 fires.

"We think this was an excellent and fair decision," said assistant U.S. attorney Deborah Ferguson.