Burns—It's calving season for heifers here. That might not mean a whole lot to you. It didn't initially mean a whole bunch to the pinstriped, wingtipped city slicker sitting in the Elks Club with a group of Harney County ranchers one Saturday afternoon. Calving heifers, you see, is a labor-intensive, round-the-clock business to ensure that the new calves don't die on the cold, damp winter ground. The fact that these ranchers would take time from their rounds a few weeks back suggests just how dire their situation is.
"If this lawsuit goes through," one says, "we'll be out of business."
In fact, there are two lawsuits, thanks to the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, and the ranchers weren't even named in the complaints. The two lawsuits—one for Murderers Creek, the one of interest to the ranchers at Elks Club for the Malheur River—are actually against the federal government. They claim the government has failed to properly regulate the federal lands under certain national environmental laws.
They are lands where these ranchers run their cattle under permit. These permitees have their own private lands, of course, but they also pay to graze their cattle on federal lands. The federal lands are a key part of the ranching economy and the seasonal rhythm of grazing and wise land use. "It's a balance," says another rancher. "If you take one of those out"—the private lands or the public land—"it takes away the balance."
That balance will be destroyed if the lawsuits succeed and permitees, through no fault of their own, are kicked off lands that their families have grazed on for decades. And so will their livelihoods and a good chunk of what's left of Harney County's economy. "We're what's left," one rancher says, noting that the loss of federal timber for the city's mill has cut Burns' population in half.
They're proud and strong folks. They're not looking for a handout; ranching is not a subsidized industry. They pay their way. When they say they "barely make a living, and the life is hard" it's not a complaint, but a proud fact. "This is a culture," one says. "This is a way of life."
They want to keep it that way. They're not angry or fearful. They're frustrated—frustrated that their fate will be decided in Portland courtrooms this month, frustrated that they may be penalized for federal land managers' failure to build a complete and accurate record of their stewardship of federal lands, frustrated that their environmental stewardship is even called into question, frustrated that they now must spend their time and energy immersed in the intricacies of litigation. The frustration tumbles forth:
"What would this country look like if we weren't here?"
"If we didn't take care of the land we could not run our cows."
"How can you devastate your resources and still be in business for years?"
"The biggest frustration for us is not ONDA, it's the government."
Maybe there's something to the lawsuits. Maybe federal land managers haven't compiled the most complete or accurate record on the health of the allotments, though a good bit of the analysis found stable or improving river conditions on permitees' allotments. But the remedy here is for the federal government to enhance its oversight and record-keeping. It's not to boot these ranchers off these federal lands. Again, as one of the ranchers put it, "What would this country look like if we weren't here?"
Good question. One answer is that it would be more prone to wildfire without cattle to eat overgrown grasses and promote the seeding of plants.
Another good question: What would Burns look like without these ranchers?
Answer: It wouldn't have as many families frequenting local stores, paying taxes and otherwise providing a rock-solid community backbone in this hard and beautiful land.
The open and plain-spoken folks whom I met with have everything to lose and nothing to hide. The irony here is that their care of our federal lands, season after season, year after year, decade after decade, may not be completely apparent in a government agency's files. Their open and plain-spoken solution: "The judges should come and look at this country."
David Reinhard
