Idaho Watersheds applies for Owyhee leases

Following on the heels of an Idaho Supreme Court victory, the Idaho Watersheds Project (IWP) has filed applications to bid on four grazing leases in Owyhee County.

The four leases cover almost 8,000 acres of Idaho School Endowment Fund lands, which IWP says have undergone riparian degradation as a result of poor cattle ranching management.

On April 2, the high court ruled that the State Land Board must offer a level playing field to those bidding on endowment fund lands. Under the "Anti-Marvel" law—ruled by the court to be in violation of the Idaho constitution—the state legislature had directed the land board to give ranchers and the cattle industry preference in lease auctions, on the grounds that they add to the state’s economy and therefore help schools in the long run.

Now it’s time to test the court’s decision, IWP president Jon Marvel said in an interview. The IWP applied on April 29 to bid on the leases, which expire December 31.

The leases are contiguous and cover a block of state-owned land within the federal Bureau of Land Management’s South Mountain Area grazing allotment. The endowment land amounts to approximately 46 percent of the South Mountain Area allotment, which encompasses about 17,000 acres and includes the headwaters of several creeks.

The allotment, including the state land, is currently leased to three Owyhee County ranchers whose grazing management, Marvel contends, has been degrading the public land and creeks for many years.

The 1996 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Draft Owyhee Resource Management Plan stated that the area’s "riparian ecosystems are in unsatisfactory condition, there is high erosion potential, and ecological condition of the allotment as a whole is unsatisfactory."

The 1981 BLM Owyhee Resource Area Environmental Impact Statement stated that the BLM-managed lands in this allotment were deemed to be in a "static or downward ecological trend." There has been no change since then, Marvel said.

BLM Owyhee area manager Daryl Albiston said the overall ecological trend in the agency’s Owyhee areas is "upward but gradual." He said some sites may show dramatic improvement and others may show none at all.

"The value of riparian resources has gone up in the past several years, and we’re trying to work with that to better manage and enhance those values," Albiston said.

If IWP wins the leases through auction, Marvel said, a "win, win, win situation" will result. The schools will get money through the auction, ranchers will understand that degradation of the environment could eventually hurt their own businesses, and the IWP will help to protect Owyhee area lands, he said.