Chronology of Success 2009

‘Winning for the West’

January 2009

  • In one of our largest cases, Advocates for the West represents WWP in challenging a suite of BLM land use plans for failing to address greater sage-grouse needs and habitat requirements. Approved in the last years of the Bush Administration, these plans allow rampant energy development, off-road vehicle use, and livestock grazing across 34 million acres of public lands in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, and Montana.

February 2009

  • Following a two week trial, U.S. District Court issued a detailed 80-page ruling documenting how livestock grazing harms sage-grouse populations and habitat; and issued an injunction ordering BLM to cease “grazing-as-usual” in the Jarbidge Field Office of southern Idaho, to protect sage-grouse and other sensitive species following the massive Murphy Complex fires.
  • Staff Attorney Kristin Ruether won a state court ruling that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife unlawfully granted a permit for livestock grazing on a state wildlife refuge that is home to the small remaining sage-grouse populations in central Washington.

March 2009

  • In a companion case to the BLM land use plan litigation, Advocates for the West filed a second major new lawsuit for WWP challenging more than 600 BLM grazing permits, energy leases, and other land management actions in Idaho and Nevada for failing to address cumulative impacts on the Great Base “core” sage-grouse population.
  • Under court-approved settlement, ESA litigation is resolved against U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the critically-endangered woodland caribou in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington. The prior court injunction that we won–prohibiting motorized winter recreation use in most of the caribou recovery zone–will remain in place until the agencies adopt a new, lawful plan; and the federal government agreed to pay substantial attorney fees and litigation costs in the settlement.

April 2009

  • On behalf of Idaho Conservation League, we finalized a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to resolve its violations of the federal Clean Water Act in reviewing State of Idaho water quality standards for arsenic and other toxic pollutants.

May 2009

  • Ruling by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill affirms the propriety of our major lawsuit–filed in Idaho federal court–over BLM land use plans in six western states for failure to address sage-grouse needs (see below). The court held that we properly challenged BLM’s failure to consider cumulative impacts of global climate change and other threats to sage-grouse across its range.

June 2009

  • Under a new court-approved stipulation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to determine in February 2010 whether greater sage-grouse should be listed as an endangered or threatened species under the ESA, following publication of new science monograph on sage-grouse.

July 2009

  • Court-approved settlement requires BLM to rescind August 2007 “categorical exclusion policy” under which BLM purported to authorize itself to avoid conducting environmental reviews when renewing grazing permits and approving vegetation treatments across the American West. This settlement complements our court victories enjoining BLM from gutting its grazing regulations to exclude the public from most grazing decisions.

August 2009

  • Advocates for the West filed several new cases against the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies to protect salmon, steelhead, bull trout and sage-grouse in the Lemhi and Pahsimeroi River drainages in the upper Salmon River basin of central Idaho.

October 2009

  • After Senior Staff Attorney Todd Tucci won four court rulings against it, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally determined to list Slickspot peppergrass as a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act. This rare desert flower is found only in southern Idaho, and is nearing extinction due to impacts of grazing and other human actions.
  • In the latest of several rulings won by Staff Attorney Laurie Rule, the U.S. District Court enjoined BLM from allowing domestic sheep grazing on the Partridge Creek allotment along the Salmon River, to protect bighorn sheep from fatal diseases spread by domestic sheep grazing on public lands. The court also rejected recent Idaho legislation–procured by the sheep industry–that required Idaho Fish and Game Dept. to reach deals allowing sheep grazing to continue without protecting bighorn sheep.

November 2009

  • Idaho State Land Board approves new regulations that–for the first time–allow conservation leases of state trust lands. The regulations were adopted after ten years of litigation, in which courts repeatedly held that the Land Board violated constitutional requirements by discriminating against conservation applicants for state leases.

December 2009

  • U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho ruled that BLM violated its own grazing regulations by failing to impose mandatory terms to protect streams, uplands, and fish and wildlife habitat on the 70,000-acre Nickel Creek allotment in Owyhee Canyonlands.
  • In a major victory in our battle to prevent gold mining operations in the Boise watershed, Snake River Basin Adjudication court ruled for us that the Atlanta Mine could not revive long-unused water rights, and that a 2008 “mining forfeiture exemption” statute is unconstitutional if it is interpreted to allow resurrection of such rights. Following that ruling, the Atlanta Mine withdrew its SRBA water rights claims.