BLM withdraws grazing decisions on Steens Mountain

A judge today granted BLM's request to vacate the agency's own decisions to renew livestock grazing permits on 31 allotments, covering about 840,000 acres of public land on and around Steens Mountain, based on legal pressure from the Oregon Natural Desert Association.

The conservation group had filed 16 appeals since March, 2008, challenging BLM's decisions to renew 10-year grazing permits without first doing any environmental study of the impacts of that grazing on wilderness, wildlife habitat and other resource values. In August, the agency finally conceded that its decisions were illegal, settling a related case brought by conservation partner Western Watersheds Project in Idaho. In the settlement, BLM agreed "to permanently discontinue use" of a 2007, Bush Administration policy allowing permits to be renewed without environmental review.

"Although it took far too long to happen, we applaud BLM's recognition that authorizing grazing on public land without first studying impacts to the environment is illegal and just doesn't make sense," said Brent Fenty, executive director for ONDA. "We now look forward to working with the agency in the context of a comprehensive, public review of its management of these important public lands."

Following the Idaho settlement, BLM conceded its decisions challenged by ONDA in Oregon also were illegal under federal laws requiring agencies to study the impacts to the environment of most of their proposals.

Situated deep in southeast Oregon’s high desert, Steens Mountain rises more than 9,700 feet from broad sagebrush steppe interspersed with juniper woodlands, aspen groves, and relic fir stands. In 2000, Congress passed the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act, protecting 428,000 acres for the benefit of the “long-term ecological integrity of Steens Mountain for future and present generations.”