Sage-Grouse in Idaho

Advocates for the West won a significant victory to protect the small and declining eastern Idaho sub-population of the imperiled greater sage-grouse when a federal judge fully vacated a set of approvals by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorizing development of the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine. Phosphate from the mine was slated to be used by Bayer AG—which in 2018 purchased the pesticide giant Monsanto—in manufacturing glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup brand products. 

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Arizona’s Tonto National Forest

Advocates for the West halted cattle grazing in a pristine corner of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest just below the scenic Mogollon Rim. The Court held that the Forest Service made “serious errors” in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act in approving a plan to expand grazing on the Tonto National Forest’s Bar X allotment—including opening pastures that had been closed to grazing for nearly 40 years after cattle had destroyed soil and vegetation and displaced wildlife such as deer, elk, and turkeys. 

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Native Pinyon-Juniper Habitats

Advocates for the West won a court-approved settlement agreement requiring the BLM to abandon a decision authorizing extensive destruction of native pinyon pine and juniper habitats across the American West without requiring prior analysis and public disclosure of possible environmental impacts. These projects could be up to 10,000 acres in size with no limit on the number the agency could approve. Pinyon-juniper forests provide important habitat for imperiled species such as the pinyon jay, which has experienced a population decline of up to 85% since the late 1960s. 

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Bighorn Sheep in Washington State

Advocates for the West reached a settlement to protect nearly half of the wild bighorn sheep in Washington state from the threat of disease outbreaks posed by domestic sheep grazing. The Forest Service has long failed to require separation between bighorns and domestic sheep on allotments within the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest that pose a high risk of disease transmission to bighorns. Under the settlement, the agency will complete a long-overdue environmental review to determine whether high-risk allotments should be closed.

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Sonoran Desert National Monument

Advocates for the West won a victory stopping livestock grazing authorizations in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert National Monument. For the second time, a judge determined that the BLM relied on faulty information to justify livestock grazing on sensitive desert landscapes home to the Sonoran desert tortoise, the saguaro cactus, and rich in cultural resources, despite the agency’s records showing that moderate to severe damage to soils and vegetation from livestock still scar the Monument’s fragile cactus forests, 10 or more years since the last cattle departed in some cases. 

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Idaho’s South Fork Salmon River

Mining company Perpetua Resources will pay the Nez Perce Tribe $5 million as part of a settlement agreement resolving a Clean Water Act lawsuit filed by Advocates for the West and the Tribe’s Office of Legal Counsel over ongoing pollution discharges into the headwaters of the East Fork South Fork Salmon River from mining adits and waste piles at the proposed Stibnite Gold Mine site. Under the settlement, Perpetua agrees to provide payments over a four-year period into a special fund to be used by the Tribe to support water quality improvement projects in the South Fork Salmon River watershed.

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Oregon Spotted Frog

Advocates for the West won a strong victory to protect the Oregon spotted frog within the Antelope Allotment of central Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. The Court held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) fell short of its obligations under the Endangered Species Act when issuing a Biological Opinion that allowed cattle grazing within critical habitat for the frog, failing “to consider whether the small frog population could sustain grazing-related impacts on top of potential climate change effects.” 

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Red Cliffs National Conservation Area

Advocates for the West secured a major victory halting a four-lane high speed highway through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area in southwestern Utah—a scenic desert paradise home to the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. The Court approved reconsideration of the Northern Corridor Highway right-of-way after the BLM and FWS acknowledged, as part of the litigation, substantial and legitimate concerns with the 2020 Environmental Impact Statement which supported granting the right-of-way through the heart of the National Conservation Area.

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Idaho’s South Fork Clearwater River

Advocates for the West’s prior wins—holding that professional gold miner Shannon Poe violated the federal Clean Water Act when he dumped suction dredge mining waste into the South Fork of the Clearwater River without a required pollution permit, and requiring Poe to pay a $150,000 fine—were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The South Fork Clearwater is a State Protected River and provides critical habitat for salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and other sensitive species.