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For the week of Sept. 29, 1999 through Oct. 4, 1999

The scalene nature of public lands ranching

Environmentalists, Forest Service and ranchers duke it out


By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

A scalene triangle has unequal sides. So do political issues—but which side carries the most weight is a matter of perception.

Conservationist Lynn Stone drives her dusty pickup north along the North Fork of the Big Lost River, just across Trail Creek Summit from the Wood River Valley, and, as she does, explains just how unbalanced, just how scalene, she believes public lands cattle ranching is.

Autumn’s gold punctures small holes in the otherwise brown sagebrush tapestry, but it’s not the changing of the seasons that has her pointing out the window every time the truck rounds a bend in the dirt road. Rather, crumbling stream banks, gnawed-off, stubby grasses and endless fields of cow pies pique her interest.

"There should be at least six inches of stubble here," she says, pointing to a patch of chewed-down grass standing about an inch high. "Look at that stream bank eroding into the water…We can’t get them to admit that they’re overgrazing this."

Stone’s reference to "them" is to the Salmon/Challis National Forest officials, who oversee the management of the area. They’re on one side of the triangle with ranchers and environmentalists on the others.

The North Fork of the Big Lost River is part of the Wild Horse grazing allotment, which is part of the Lost River Ranger District, which is part of the Salmon/Challis National Forest. The allotment is made up of the North Fork and Kane Creek drainage basins. Each year for two weeks, 1,892 pairs of cows with calves from six different ranches are permitted on the 94,000-acre allotment.

Stone is on her way to meet three Salmon/Challis National Forest officials and fellow-conservationist and Idaho Watersheds Project president Jon Marvel for a tour of the allotment. It’s been only two weeks since the cattle were removed, and their effects linger.

In previous years, she warns, such meetings have been confrontational. This one, it turns out, is no different.

The Forest Service officials must perform a delicate balancing act, managing the land for its ecological value while providing forage for ranching. People on both sides—ranchers and conservationists—tug endlessly on the Forest Service’s sleeves, and the job is difficult, Salmon/Challis supervisor George Matejko admits.

Ranching is one of the West’s most traditional industries and has a place in modern-day public land management, he says.

The conservationists, however, contend that the Salmon/Challis National Forest is bending over backward to accommodate the cattle industry. They contend the ranching side of the triangle, in that National Forest, is easily the largest, most supported side, and the inherent environmental impacts are unacceptable.

Lost River district ranger Carol Eckert and Matejko concede a bit of a problem. They just don’t admit there’s enough of a problem to make the allotment a priority in channeling the forest’s dwindling funds into prevention or restoration projects there. They refuse to cut down on permitted herd sizes.

"We’re not saying cattle don’t have an impact," Eckert says as she surveys a trampled-down pond turned mud pit along Mud Creek. "They just don’t have all the impact. Obviously there are concerns…I believe we can work with the permittees (ranchers) and solve the problem."

But Eckert’s persistence in cooperating with the ranchers isn’t enough for Marvel. He asks in vain for the officials to work toward water quality standards, woody plant standards, minimum grass height standards, or to lower the numbers of cattle allowed on the allotment. The Forest Service officials don’t budge on their position. It’ll take time, they say.

"The permittees here don’t get it," Marvel says. "They just don’t, and the Forest Service just doesn’t get it. They’re rolling over."

Matejko’s philosophy is a bit simpler.

"I’ve learned that trying to work things out for the short term just doesn’t work," he says.

#

The North Fork of the Big Lost and Kane Creek basins aren’t the only nearby areas where cattle grazing’s effects are apparent. In the Sawtooth National Forest, however, land managers admit it when land is overgrazed and action needs to be taken.

In the Frog Lake basin of the White Cloud Mountains this summer, cattle were discovered in late July, roughly a month, possibly longer, before they were permitted to be in the area. The Frog Lake basin is on the east side of the White Cloud peaks and drains into the East Fork of the Salmon River. It is part of the East Fork grazing allotment, leased to the Baker Ranch Partnership, based out of the Salmon River valley.

Sawtooth National Recreation Area ranger Deb DesLaurier admitted cattle have been in the Frog Lake area for most of the grazing season, a problem that has persisted periodically throughout the past 10 years.

"It’s tough when you have one or two people (range specialists) to cover several million acres…to be sure that everything is grazed to a certain standard," DesLaurier said in an interview. "Frog Lake, and other remote areas, are difficult to check. It’s a big job and we don’t have the people to do it."

The Sawtooth Forest is also struggling with budget constraints.

Part of the problem in the upper East Fork area, which includes Little Redfish Lake and Frog Lake, is that, since 1993, efforts to keep cattle out of the lakes area until Labor Day have failed more often than not. Cattle are allowed in streams above the lakes before Labor Day, but must pass the off-limits area to get there.

According to SNRA range specialist Seth Phalen, grazing in the area is a problem that has to be remedied before the next grazing season arrives.

DesLaurier said that out of the five National Forests she has worked on during her tenure with the Forest Service, stubble heights in this area are extremely low. She said grasses in the Frog Lake area are chewed down to one or two inches.

The East Fork grazing allotment, divided into upper and lower halves, is about to come up for renewal. DesLaurier said the process of reissuing an environmental assessment of the lower half, under standards set by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), will be underway this winter. Environmental assessments were conducted there in 1993.

In sharp contrast, the last time an environmental assessment of the Wild Horse allotment—on the Salmon/Challis forest—was performed was in 1970, and the Lost River Ranger District’s Eckert said the next could be conducted "in a few years."

Sawtooth National Forest supervisor Bill LeVere said EAs are conducted at intervals decided by each forest. He said that on the SNRA, they are done every seven to 10 years. On the Salmon/Challis National Forest, rangers there said, they are done about every 30 years.

DesLaurier stood behind grazing as a viable use of public lands despite this summer’s complications.

"Livestock grazing is a very appropriate use of public lands," she said. "I support livestock grazing when it is done properly."

#

Others, however, sometimes view public lands grazing as objectionable—and one of the biggest wastes of tax dollars.

Marvel admits that roads and recreation are environmental problems too. He said, "The reason I focus on livestock is that grazing affects 10,000 times the acreage, especially in riparian areas."

On a recent trip to Narrow Gauge Creek, in the Deer Creek drainage north of Hailey, Marvel pointed out that a cow requires 800 to 1,000 pounds of forage each month and excretes approximately 60 pounds of waste a day.

The Forest Service charges ranchers $1.35 per cow-calf pair to graze for a month and estimates its costs to implement public lands grazing at $5.81 per animal pair.

Marvel’s answer to the enigma is simple.

"Well just stop grazing here, period. The people of the Wood River Valley aren’t depending on ranching here for their livelihood," he said of the Deer Creek allotment, which allows 205 cattle on 6,000 acres.

The allotment is leased to millionaire Don Bren, who owns California-based Irvine Co.

"Should a man this rich be paying $1.35 per month per cow to graze on your land?" Marvel asks.

According to Lynn Jacobs, author of Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching, a 600-page testimonial to what he terms the "devastating" effects of cattle grazing, the answer is no.

"Ranching is by far the West’s most environmentally destructive land use," Jacobs writes. "Unfortunately, livestock’s destructive influences are mostly unrecognized and thus uncorrected. Their geographic remoteness and subtle, dispersed and insidious nature combine with our society’s blind love affair with cowboys and cows to make livestock grazing the most misunderstood and neglected major environmental problem facing the rural West."

According to Blaine County rancher Rob Struthers, grazing can have negative impacts on the land, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

"It’s all how the livestock are managed," he said. "It varies with each rancher and each individual. Ranching is beneficial for everyone if it’s done right."

 

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