Chronology of Success 2022
‘Winning for the West’
March 2022
- Conglomerate Mesa Gold Mining Plan Stopped: Following years of advocacy by Senior Attorney Todd Tucci with Friends of the Inyo, Conservation Lands Foundation, and other allies, Canadian mining company K2 Gold publicly announced it was abandoning plans to conduct gold mining exploration on Conglomerate Mesa—a spectacularly wild and remote area located in the Inyo Mountains near Death Valley National Park. The mesa contains Joshua Tree woodlands, precious and imperiled native plant species, and areas protected as Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.
June 2022
- Massive Logging Projects Halted in Salmon-Clearwater Divide: Staff Attorney Bryan Hurlbutt won a major victory to protect biodiverse old growth forests on Idaho’s Salmon-Clearwater Divide when the Idaho federal court issued a ruling halting two massive logging projects, “End of the World” and “Hungry Ridge.” Approved by the Forest Service at the end of the Trump administration, together the projects would have resulted in logging over 40 square miles to generate more than 317 million board feet of timber over the next 10 years, with huge clearcuts in old growth forests.
July 2022
- Court Settlement Protects Native Carnivores in Idaho: Senior Attorney Laurie Rule secured a settlement agreement approved by the U.S. District Court judge to protect Idaho’s native carnivores through a number of restrictions on wildlife-killing methods. The agreement with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services guarantees interim protections for native wildlife pending the completion of new environmental reviews of Wildlife Services’ actions, required by the end of 2024.
August 2022
- Protecting the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area: Senior Attorney Todd Tucci reached a settlement forcing the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider the compatibility of livestock grazing authorizations within Arizona’s San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area (NCA)—a world-renowned biodiversity hotspot, home to more than 400 bird, 50 reptile and amphibian, and 80 mammal species. The settlement requires BLM to evaluate whether grazing is actually “conserving, protecting, and enhancing” the riparian habitat values the NCA designation is meant to protect; to take action to address ongoing trespass and unauthorized livestock use in the areas that are closed to grazing; and to examine impacts to numerous sensitive species.
September 2022
- Suction Dredge Mining Penalty: Following our June 2022 win over suction dredge mining by Shannon Poe on the South Fork Clearwater River, the district court imposed a $150,000 fine against Poe and barred him from further mining until the penalty is paid and he gets a permit as required under the Clean Water Act (CWA). This is one of the largest CWA penalties ever against an individual in Idaho.
October 2022
- Western Slope Oil and Gas Development Blocked: Staff Attorney Lizzy Potter finalized a court-approved settlement preventing the Bureau of Land Management from issuing new oil and gas leases for nearly a million acres of public lands in the Uncompahgre region on the Western Slope of Colorado until it conducts a more thorough environmental analysis, amends its Resource Management Plan, and reconsiders the eligibility of lands open to oil and gas leasing—as well as protections for lands with wilderness characteristics and designation of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. We sued after Trump Interior Secretary Bernhardt approved a plan that opened 95 percent of Bureau lands in the region to energy leasing while neglecting wildernessand other conservation values.