For the week of August 15 - 21, 2001

Ranchers appeal grazing closure

Rep. Simpson spurs Forest Service to reconsider

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, is asking the U.S. Forest Service to reverse its decision to close a Sawtooth National Forest sheep grazing allotment permitted to a company associated with Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa.

In January, Sawtooth National Forest Ketchum District Ranger Kurt Nelson stated his intention to permanently close the 10,806-acre Pot Creek Allotment, in the Little Wood River drainage, due to damaged conditions and unsuitable grazing land on the site.

Nelson also suspended the allotment for the 2001 season due to grazing permit infractions incurred by the Muldoon Grazing Association.

The permitees have appealed both decisions. Following several extensions and a failed mediation process, a protest hearing is scheduled for next month. In that hearing, Sawtooth National Forest Supervisor Bill LeVere must either back up his district ranger, side with the appellants or find a compromise.

Carey sheep rancher Jim Peterson has annually grazed his bands on the allotment. Peterson is a member of the Muldoon Grazing Association, which holds the permit.

According to Ketchum District Range Conservation Officer Mike O’Farrell, the association consists of three members, one of which is Lava Lake Land and Livestock, managed by Cenarrusa, who sent a letter of appeal to the Forest Service on March 5.

Nelson substantiated his reasons for closing the allotment in a 10-page document sent to LeVere on June 18. But the permitees, in a later letter to Simpson, called Forest Service personnel "arbitrary and unreasonable, making it very difficult to work with them."

That statement drew Simpson’s attention.

"I again respectfully point out that we have a new (presidential) administration and that now is the perfect time for the Forest Service and other public lands agencies to renew their commitment to find innovative, cooperative approaches to permit oversights and enforcement," Simpson wrote in a letter June 29 to Intermountain Regional Forester Jack Blackwell in Ogden, Utah.

The allotment’s closure, however, was not an overnight process.

In 1995, the Ketchum Ranger District adopted the Little Wood Ecosystem Analysis, which established two options for addressing grazing concerns in the Pot Creek Allotment.

Option one required monitoring the effects of sheep grazing on the allotment through 1996. Option two was to be implemented if the 1996 monitoring results showed that grazing practices were not resulting in movement toward meeting Forest Service standards.

"Option two, if implemented, would result in canceling the Pot Creek Allotment portion of the Muldoon Grazing Association term grazing permit," Nelson wrote to LeVere.

Nelson said the monitoring outlined in the first option was extended through 2000 to achieve a more fair and accurate assessment of the allotment’s conditions.

Nelson cited the following reasons for his decision:

• Violations of herding standards continue to occur. Sheep continue to be grazed in areas identified as closed.
  
  

• Repeated use in key areas and over-use of upland and wetland plant species has continued.
  
  

• Large areas in the allotment remain in poor condition and have not recovered from historic grazing impacts. Continued sheep grazing is contributing to this condition.
  
  

• The effects of this use resulted in continued damage to soil, watershed, riparian areas and upland vegetation.

Nelson wrote that it would be very difficult to graze sheep on the allotment in a way to improve the general condition of the allotment.

"The permitee has not been successful in managing the allotment within acceptable standards," Nelson wrote.

The permitees disagreed.

"The Muldoon Grazing Association questions that unacceptable resource damage continues in riparian areas and in uplands as a result of overgrazing and heavy trailing of sheep," Cenarrusa wrote.

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