News

The U.S. District Court issued an opinion and granted in part a motion by federal defendants, remanding the 2021 approval of the Northern Corridor Highway right-of-way through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in southwestern Utah. The court decision paves the way for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to reconsider their…

Advocates for the West and our partners won a strong victory to protect Oregon spotted frogs on Jack Creek within the Antelope Allotment of central Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) fell short of its obligations under the Endangered Species Act when…

Advocates for the West and our partners are speaking out against a mining exploration project proposal in the headwaters of the Boise River, posing major threats to water quality, fish, and wildlife. The groups succeeded in blocking variations of the project twice before. Idaho Copper is seeking approval from the U.S. Forest Service to construct…

Advocates for the West filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel Mountain Home Air Force Base to release public records as required by law. The records relate to the Air Force’s proposal to expand and intensify military aircraft trainings over the Owyhee Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, southeastern Oregon, and northern Nevada….

Advocates for the West filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its failure to abide by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to determine the prioritization and timing of environmental analyses for livestock grazing allotments on public lands. This has resulted in…

Mining company Perpetua Resources will pay the Nez Perce Tribe $5 million as part of a settlement agreement reached 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,…

Advocates for the West won a lawsuit stopping livestock grazing authorizations in the Sonoran Desert National Monument. We represented Western Watersheds Project and the Sierra Club-Grand Canyon Chapter in the case. This is the second time a judge has determined that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) relied on faulty information to justify livestock grazing…

Advocates for the West filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service challenging the agency’s unlawful decisions to improve and expand four locations in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness for aircraft landings and to permit hobby pilots to use these sites for motorized recreation. We’re representing Wilderness Watch, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Friends of…

Advocates for the West filed a settlement agreement in federal court requiring the Forest Service to address the threat that domestic sheep grazing poses to nearly half of the wild bighorn sheep in Washington state from disease outbreaks. The settlement resolves litigation filed in November 2020 by Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians over the agency’s failure to…

Advocates for the West and our partners won another major victory to protect sage-grouse in southeastern Idaho. On June 2, 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…