Chronology of Success 2023

‘Winning for the West’

January 2023

• Caldwell Canyon Phosphate Mine Held Unlawful: We won a significant victory to protect sage- grouse when a federal judge held that BLM violated federal laws in authorizing development of the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine in southeastern Idaho. The court’s January 2023 decision ruled that BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act by failing to adequately assess environmental harms, including harms to vital habitat for the imperiled sage-grouse, of which the small eastern Idaho sub-population is barely hanging on. Mine proponent P4, a subsidiary of Bayer corporation, seeks phosphate ore from the mine to manufacture its infamous herbicide, Roundup.

March 2023

• Pinyon-Juniper Categorical Exclusion Rule Reversed: Led by our Senior Attorney Todd Tucci, 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.

May 2023

• Appeals Court Victory Halts Grazing on Bar X Allotment (AZ): Our Staff Attorney Andrew Missel won a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit halting 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 destroyed soil and vegetation and displaced wildlife such as deer, elk, and turkeys.

June 2023

• Court Ruling Halts Caldwell Canyon Phosphate Mine (ID): In June 2023, we won a significant
  victory to protect sage-grouse when a federal judge vacated BLM’s approvals authorizing
  development of the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine in southeastern Idaho, thus halting further
  development of the mine. This followed the court’s January 2023 decision holding that BLM
  violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management
  Act by failing to adequately assess environmental harms, including harms to vital habitat for the
  imperiled sage-grouse, of which the small eastern Idaho sub-population is barely hanging on. Mine proponent P4, a subsidiary of Bayer corporation, seeks phosphate ore from the mine to manufacture its infamous herbicide, Roundup.

August 2023

• Latest Victory over Grazing on Sonoran Desert National Monument (AZ): Our Senior Attorney
  Laurie Rule 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.

September 2023

• Settlement in Stibnite CWA Case Nets $5 Million for Nez Perce Tribe (ID): Mining company
  Perpetua Resources will pay the Nez Perce Tribe $5 million as part of a settlement agreement over ongoing pollution discharges into the headwaters of the East Fork South Fork Salmon River. The settlement resolves a 2019 Clean Water Act (CWA) lawsuit filed by Advocates for the West and the Tribe’s Office of Legal Counsel challenging the illegal discharge of arsenic, cyanide, mercury, and other pollutants, without a CWA permit, from mining adits and waste piles at the proposed Stibnite Gold Mine site east of McCall, Idaho. Perpetua (formerly Midas Gold) agreed to provide payments totaling $4 million 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, and also reimburse the Tribe $1 million for fees and costs incurred in the case. The settlement also acknowledges that the Tribe will continue to oppose Perpetua’s proposed mining plan for the site.

October 2023

• Oregon Spotted Frog (OR): In October 2023, we won a strong victory to protect the Oregon spotted frog within the Antelope Allotment of central Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when issuing a Biological Opinion that allowed cattle grazing within critical habitat for the frog, by failing “to consider whether the small frog population could sustain grazing-related impacts on top of potential climate change effects.” We anticipate this victory will result in finally ending grazing on the allotment’s sensitive fen and wetlands habitats for the frog.

November 2023

• Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (UT): In November 2023, we secured a major victory halting the proposed four-lane Northern Corridor Highway through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in southwestern Utah—a stunning red rock wilderness home to the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. In the final days of the Trump administration, Interior Secretary Bernhardt approved a plan to punch the highway through the heart of the NCA, disregarding impacts to desert tortoise and other NCA values. Settlement of our D.C. litigation reversed that decision and requires new analysis by BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service.