Click the link to read the article on the LandDesk.org website (Jonathan P. Thompson):
February 7, 2025
🌵 Public Lands 🌲
The News: Last week, administrative judge Dawn Perry halted the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of The Nature Conservancy’s plan to build 13 reservoirs and erect five fences on the Indian Creek grazing allotment within Bears Ears National Monument. Perry ruled in favor of Western Watersheds Project, Jonathan B. Ratner, and Sage Steppe Wild, who had appealed the approval, and found that the agency had failed to adequately analyze impacts of the plan.
The Context: The Indian Creek allotment and the Dugout Ranch that runs cattle on it are integral to the West’s ranching history, and a perfect example of how public land grazing is complicated as an environmental issue, and how a certain sentimentality shades society’s — and land management agency’s — views of it.
The ranch is probably one of the more spectacular chunks of private land in the West, covering 5,000 acres in the Indian Creek drainage adjacent to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park and surrounded by towering Wingate sandstone cliffs and formations. It was first settled by white folks in the 1880s, although BLM records suggest the homestead wasn’t patented until 1915 by David Cooper.
Three years later Al Scorup — known as the “Mormon Cowboy” — and his brother Jim teamed up with Moab’s Somerville family to purchase the Indian Creek Cattle Company and the Dugout Ranch. They had a rough go of it: cattle prices crashed, the Spanish Flu killed Jim and his wife, and a hard winter killed 2,000 head of the company’s cattle.
But the Mormon Cowboy held on and by 1927 had permits to graze 6,800 cattle on U.S. Forest Service land, more than any other permittee in the nation. In 1936, two years after the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, Scorup’s company recorded 4,000 or so cattle on federal Grazing Service (now BLM) land, including in Beef Basin, Dark Canyon, White Canyon, and Grand Gulch.
In 1965, a year after Congress designated Canyonlands as a national monument, Charlie Redd acquired the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company, which included the Dugout Ranch and its associated grazing leases.1 Soon thereafter, Redd’s son Robert, along with his wife Heidi, took over the ranch. Heidi Redd, legendary in southeast Utah and beyond, sold the ranch to the Nature Conservancy in 1997, though she continued to operate the ranch until her son and daughter-in-law took over. In 2016, then President Barack Obama designated the Bears Ears National Monument, which included the entirety of the 272,000-acre Indian Creek allotment.
For some folks it might seem strange that an environmental group, The Nature Conservancy, is running cattle on a national monument — especially in Utah’s high desert, where the land is especially fragile and cultural sites are plentiful. After all, green groups aren’t taking over oil and gas wells and trying to run them in a more environmentally-friendly way.
But this is part of the $9.9 billion nonprofit corporation’s method. Rather than taking land out of livestock production, TNC looks to work with folks in the “beef supply chain to adopt a sustainability framework that keeps grasslands ecologically intact and economically productive, safeguarding the future ranching families and feeding a growing world.”2 Meanwhile, by acquiring the Dugout Ranch, it saved it from being developed as a desert glamping resort or some billionaire’s hideaway — triggering the “I’d rather see a cow than a condo” meme — and also established the Canyonlands Research Center there, which studies climate change and works to develop sustainable grazing practices.
Of course, many biologists and environmentalists would say that the only sustainable way to graze public lands is not to do it at all. In theory, TNC could have purchased the ranch, continued to run cattle (albeit far fewer) on private land, and bought out the public land grazing permits and retired them, as the Grand Canyon Trust did in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the late 1990s.3
The Conservancy’s Dugout Ranch’s Indian Creek permit is for just over 8,500 animal unit months, meaning they can run about 1,000 cows on the allotment from early October to mid-June. While the allotment is vast, the sections in the Dark Canyon and Beef Basin areas are harder to access, so grazing is more intensive in the 56,000 acres of pastures surrounding the private ranch. In 2018, the ranch proposed constructing 13 reservoirs, one well, and five fences on those public land pastures in an effort to distribute the cattle more evenly across the parcel and take some pressure off existing water sources, such as Indian Creek and in Davis and Lavender Canyons. It also aimed to increase livestock productivity and “improve grazing management in changing climate conditions.”
Last year the BLM approved the project (minus the well), saying it would spread the cattle out and lessen their impacts, thereby protecting the recognized “objects” of the national monument. The agency’s review, and justification for the approval, emphasizes TNC’s intent to graze its cattle sustainably and its diligence in controlling its cattle, almost as if this is a reason to approve the project, regardless of impacts. However, BLM emails obtained by Ratner show that the agency scolded the ranch for allowing cows to graze off-season in the Dark Canyon and Beef Basin areas, resulting in springs being “heavily trampled,” calling it a “livestock trespass situation,” and urging TNC to more diligently control their cows.
Western Watersheds, Sage Steppe Wild, and Ratner appealed the approval, arguing that the BLM had failed to take a hard look at potential impacts. “How would bulldozing 13 reservoirs for the sole benefit of the private interests of a massive corporation protect, preserve and restore the Bear’s Ears landscape?” Ratner wrote in his appeal. The foundational problem, he argued, is that the number of cattle exceed the pastures’ carrying capacity, not uneven distribution of cattle, and implementing the project as a solution was equivalent to putting “a tiny band aid on multiple gunshot wounds.”
The project might keep the cattle from concentrating in one area, but it would also broaden the area of impact to parts of the pasture that may have seen little grazing. The BLM predicted that the reservoirs’ construction would destroy valuable biocrusts and native vegetation, and that subsequent grazing would lay waste to everything within a 50- to 300-foot radius from each reservoir. But Western Watersheds pointed out that the BLM’s basis for this finding is shaky, and that most peer-reviewed research has found that grazing’s impacts extend for one to two miles from a water source.
Furthermore, the appellants argued, the BLM provides no evidence that building new water sources will reduce impacts on or lead to the restoration or healing of the existing water sources.
In a written statement, Laura Welp, of the Western Watersheds Project, pointed out that BLM signs and literature warn recreationists not to “bust the crust,” yet in giving grazing a virtual blank check, the agency is ignoring the impacts a thousand half-ton bovines have on the fragile soil, native vegetation, and cultural resources.
The Department of Interior’s administrative judge, largely agreed with the appellants, finding that the agency’s environmental review included “barely any rangeland health data specific to the pastures or locations where the new reservoirs and fences will be constructed.” She put a stay on the approval and the project, which doesn’t necessarily kill the project, but does require the agency to redo its review.
“Given that the only stated purpose in the EA for constructing thirteen reservoirs and five fences is to redistribute livestock, BLM had an obligation to analyze how optimized livestock distribution would impact rangeland health,” Judge Perry wrote in her ruling. “When viewed together, the immediate and irreparable impacts associated with construction activities, concentrated use, and livestock redistribution support the imposition of a stay.”
I guess sentimentality only goes so far.
The West’s Sacred Cow: https://www.landdesk.org/p/the-wests-sacred-cow — Jonathan P. Thompson
Buried within the Trump administration’s “unleashing American energy” executive order was a mandate for the Interior Department to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands, consistent with existing law, including 54 U.S.C. 320301 and 43 U.S.C. 1714.”
It so happens that 54 U.S.C. 320301 is the Antiquities Act. So this means that all the national monuments created by presidents under the law — and not later designated by Congress — are in play. This could mean that Trump will try not only to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but could bring his illegal monument wrecking ball to places like Aztec Ruins, Hovenweep, Natural Bridges, and even Devils Tower national monuments.
I’m thinking that it probably won’t go that far. Trump is motivated by spite and revenge, and I doubt he has any bone to pick with ol’ Warren G. Harding4, who established Hovenweep and Aztec Ruins national monuments in 1923, or Teddy Roosevelt, who established Devils Tower and Natural Bridges national monuments in 1906 and 1908, respectively.
But I’m not so optimistic about the fate of Bears Ears, GSENM, and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Still, it’s not worth freaking out about this yet, since we don’t know what Interior Secretary Doug Burgum might do on these things. Plus, any reduction of the monuments is very vulnerable to legal challenges, since they would be, well, illegal. There’s plenty of other outrageous things the administration — and Elon Musk — are actually doing now that are worth freaking out about.
I’ve been doing a lot of that lately — freaking out, that is — but also trying not to be overwhelmed by the firehose of absurdity, much of which is mere bluster aimed at distracting us from the real damage being inflicted or simply to aggravate the “libs.”
And damage is being done, from the attempted purge of federal employees (including a freeze on federal firefighter hiring); to canceling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs along with environmental justice initiatives; to the spending freeze on Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction act funds, which threatens to crush nonprofits and kill programs aimed at helping low- and moderate-income folks, small businesses, and farms install rooftop solar.
A lot of people are going to lose jobs, and the nation will be irreparably harmed if Musk’s rampage isn’t stopped soon. Meanwhile, eggs and energy won’t be any cheaper. The only thing you can count on is that billionaires and corporations will pay less in taxes.
🦫 Wildlife Watch 🦅
I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially in these f#$%ed up times. But here it is: the annual Western Monarch Count reported a peak population of just 9,119 of the butterflies this winter, the second lowest overwintering population recorded since tracking began in 1997.
The population’s size is extremely concerning,” said Emma Pelton, an endangered species biologist with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, in a written statement. “We know small populations are especially vulnerable to environmental fluctuations, and we think that’s what happened this year. The record high late summer temperatures and drought in the West likely contributed to the significant drop-off we saw in the third and fourth breeding generations.”
The good news is that it could be an anomaly. The last three years’ counts recorded 200,000 butterflies. The monarch is being considered for protections under the Endangered Species Act, which might help. Of course, you know who’s administration is the decider on that one, so …
Vanishing Butterflies and Solar Scuffle: https://www.landdesk.org/p/vanishing-butterflies-and-solar-scuffle — Jonathan P. Thompson
⛈️ Wacky Weather Watch⚡️
It’s safe to say there is some serious weather whiplash going on all over the West. Southern California caught fire; now it’s getting deluged by atmospheric rivers. Southwest Colorado was slammed with snow in October and November; then suffered from an unusually dry December and January (I just received news that the Durango Nordic Center near the base of Purgatory Resort is shutting down until further notice due to lack of snow). This was the hottest January globally on record; but it was downright arctic in parts of Colorado (Durango had three successive nights of -10° F lows, daily records). And now the February thaw has set in, with record daily high temperatures being recorded from Grand Junction (71°), to Bluff (68°), to Albuquerque, to Denver (68°), to Phoenix (86°), to Las Vegas (80°), which hasn’t seen measurable precipitation for months.
Meanwhile, at Big Sky ski area in Montana, a sizable in-bounds avalanche broke loose during mitigation work (when the slopes were closed) and partially buried a lift terminal building.
📸 Parting Shot 🎞️
Just some songs for your listening pleasure for these messed up times…
1 Grazing is generally banned in national parks, but in Canyonlands it was allowed to continue for 11 years after the park’s establishment, or until 1975 in the original park boundaries and 1982 in expanded zones.
2 The first “West’s Sacred Cow” piece opened with the Joe Lott-Fish Creek allotment in southwestern Utah. The main permittee is a ranch owned by the Ensign Group, which is helmed by Chris Robinson, a Utah Nature Conservancy trustee and a board member of Western Resource Advocates.
3 This is a bit more complicated than it sounds. The problem is that federal law doesn’t allow normal BLM allotments to be permanently retired, and efforts to pass legislation opening the door to buyouts from willing sellers have run up against the livestock lobby, conservative lawmakers, and the romanticization of the ranching culture. However, when then-President Biden restored the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument, he added a provision that permanently retires allotments within the monument if the current permit holders willingly relinquish or sell their permits.
4 Well, actually, Harding is considered by many to be the worst U.S. president ever, and his Interior Secretary, Albert Bacon Fall, was the only cabinet member to go to prison (for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal). So maybe Trump has a bit of a rivalry going with ol’ Harding.