12 CapitalPress.com
to claims by What’s Upstream
that farmers are unregulated
polluters who let cows wade
in rivers.
“This indication from
Ray Starling is important.
It gives us optimism some
of these things will be dealt
with,” Baron said.
Between 2011 and 2016,
the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency financially sup-
ported What’s Upstream,
which was organized by
the Swinomish Indian Tribe
and several environmental
groups. They hoped to in-
fluence Washington state
lawmakers to vote for strict-
er limits on farming near
waterways.
The campaign included
a website, radio ads and a
letter-writing
campaign,
but billboards in Olympia
and Bellingham attract-
ed the attention of feder-
al lawmakers. The EPA
withdrew its support soon
after Senate Agriculture
Committee Chairman Pat
Roberts, R-Kan., called the
billboards “disturbing” and
“malicious.”
The tribe, funded by an
EPA grant passed through
the Northwest Indian Fish-
eries Commission, had a
budget of some $655,000
for the campaign. The EPA’s
inspector general has yet to
release a congressionally
requested audit into how the
money was used.
Some federal lawmakers
accused the EPA of break-
ing a federal law prohib-
iting the grant from being
used to lobby policymakers.
The Washington Public Dis-
closure Commission recent-
ly ruled What’s Upstream
didn’t need to report its po-
litical activities. Although
the campaign advocated
mandatory 100-foot buffers,
it did not cite a specific bill
and did not need to register
as a lobbying effort, accord-
ing to the PDC.
The PDC was responding
to a complaint from Save
Family Farming that named
a tribe official, Seattle lob-
bying firm Strategies 360
and then-EPA Northwest
Administrator Dennis Mc-
Lerran. The Trump adminis-
tration has not yet appointed
a new region administrator.
Baron said Save Fam-
ily Farming will ask Mc-
Lerran’s successor to get
back federal money spent
on What’s Upstream and
ensure the tribe doesn’t re-
sume the campaign.
“Given the severe dis-
appointment with the state
taking this issue seriously,
it’s gratifying the federal
government with the new
administration is consider-
ing this a pretty serious is-
sue,” Baron said.
Starling said the White
House
supports
trade.
Trump withdrew the U.S.
from the Trans-Pacific Part-
nership, which many farm
groups supported. “The
president is committed to
negotiating agreements that
secure open and equitable
access to foreign markets,”
Starling said.
Starling did not talk
about immigration policy,
but said farm labor will be
another top priority.
“We are getting to a point
of push comes to shove
when it comes to access to
a reliable workforce. That
is something we definitely
have to work on for agricul-
ture,” he said.
Starling said farmers and
ranchers have been the vic-
tims of “one regulatory pro-
posal after another.”
“We have to halt the
regulatory onslaught,” he
said. “The administration
will never lose sight of the
fact that the number one
farm preservation tool we
have is farm profitability,
not buzzwords, not catch
phrases, or a federal grant
program.”
BATTLE from Page 1
If the litigation proves
successful in scaling back the
monument’s size, it would also
effectively thwart potential re-
strictions on cattle grazing.
Although inclusion in the
monument doesn’t automati-
cally prohibit grazing — as it
does most commercial logging
— critics say ranchers will in-
evitably face increased scrutiny
and curtailments.
“Even though the language
of the proclamation says graz-
ing can continue, they just reg-
ulate you out of business,” said
Karen Budd-Falen, an attorney
specializing in public land dis-
putes.
Under the original Cas-
cade-Siskiyou National Mon-
ument proclamation issued by
President Bill Clinton, the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management
had to analyze whether grazing
interferes with “protecting the
objects of biological interest.”
If necessary, the agency was
ordered to retire allotments.
In 2008, the study found
“negative interactions between
livestock and individual biolog-
ical objects of interest,” mean-
ing that grazing was “not com-
patible” with their protection in
some locations.
This determination con-
vinced Mike Dauenhauer and
several other ranchers to sell
their grazing rights to environ-
mental groups for an undis-
closed amount.
‘Writing on the wall’
“The bottom line was we
saw the writing on the wall.
The end was near,” Dauenhau-
er said. “We fi gured anything
was better than nothing, and
the BLM was going to give us
nothing.”
Dauenhauer said he’s skep-
tical of the study’s objectivity
and believes the outcome was
largely predetermined.
In his view, the biological di-
versity of the area was retained
through more than 100 years of
grazing by cattle, which have
an impact on the land similar to
that of deer and elk.
“I think the cows are part of
the biological diversity. I don’t
think they hurt it in any respect
as long as they’re managed cor-
rectly,” Dauenhauer said.
When the monument was
fi rst established, Bradshaw felt
as though he’d largely dodged
a bullet — fewer than 30 acres
of his BLM grazing allotment
were included.
Now, roughly half of Brad-
shaw’s 10,000-acre BLM al-
lotment is encompassed by the
monument.
If grazing is eventually re-
stricted on that allotment, he
could still graze cattle on pri-
vate land and a national forest
allotment.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Jake Groves, operations director for the Murphy Co., examines a forest stand near the Cascade-Sis-
kiyou National Monument. Public forestland on which the company depends for timber were recently
included in the monument’s expansion.
However, losing the BLM
acreage would disrupt the con-
tinual availability of forage
through the seasons, potentially
rendering his cattle operation
economically unsustainable.
“We won’t be able to use
our rotational grazing system,”
Bradshaw said. “We would lose
half our grazing season.”
onto Murphy’s property, as well
as the public outcry in reaction
to logging near the monument.
Visitors often don’t realize
that private inholdings are with-
in its boundaries, he said.
“It changes the social li-
cense. The fi rst time people see
logging trucks rolling through
the monument, questions get
asked,” Groves said. “I don’t
have unlimited hours in the day
to explain our actions.”
Proponents of the mon-
ument say it’s economically
benefi cial, bringing in hunters,
fi shermen, snow-shoers, hikers
and others.
“There’s a huge amount
of tourism-related revenue
coming into this area,” said
Dickey of the Friends of the
Cascade-Siskiyou
National
Monument.
The monument is also valu-
able for university scientists
and students who research its
bountiful animal and plant life,
he said. “It’s really great to be
able to use the monument as a
background for teaching envi-
ronmental education.”
Timber impacts
For the Murphy Co., which
owns forestland and plywood
mills, the impacts of the monu-
ment’s growth are two-fold.
Up to half the company’s
timber volume comes from
federal land during some sea-
sons, so the expansion equates
to a loss of raw material in the
long term, said Jake Groves, its
operations director.
“It’s wood out of the wood
basket,” Groves said. “It’s just
been a constant erosion of the
available land base, from our
perspective.”
Mills are geographically
limited in sourcing timber, as
some logs are too distant to
transport economically, he said.
Logs from the Southern Or-
egon region are peeled at the
fi rm’s facility in White City,
Ore., for raw veneer, which
is used in plywood and engi-
neered wood at its other plants.
In all, the company employs
nearly 800 people and invests
in state-of-the art technology
to process logs effi ciently, but
none of that equipment can
operate without wood, Groves
said. “This stuff can’t make ve-
neer out of air.”
Aside from the timber sup-
ply, the monument expansion
affects Murphy’s private forests
in the region, he said.
Of the nearly 50,000 acres
owned by the company in
Southern Oregon, roughly
4,000 acres are surrounded by
the monument or are adjacent
to it.
Groves is concerned about
overstocked federal forests fu-
eling wildfi res that will spread
Lawsuits fi led
For the Murphy Co.,
though, the economic threat is
big enough to justify fi ling a
lawsuit that asks a federal judge
to declare the expansion unlaw-
ful.
Other cases have been fi led
by the American Forest Re-
sources Council, which rep-
resents timber interests, and the
Association of O&C Counties,
which represents counties that
depend on revenue from federal
timber sales.
The three complaints rely
on the same basic theory: A
majority of the new monument
acreage consists of so-called
O&C Lands, which the federal
government has dedicated to
sustained timber production.
By effectively banning most
logging on those O&C Lands,
the monument expansion was
unlawful, the lawsuits claim.
Several
environmental
groups have intervened as de-
fendants in the lawsuit fi led by
Murphy Lumber, arguing their
interests “may not be adequate-
ly represented by the existing
parties to the litigation.”
As reasons for their inter-
vention, the environmentalists
cite “the federal government’s
frequent reluctance to ade-
quately protect the O&C lands”
and the governmental transi-
tion to a “president and federal
agency leadership who did not
participate in the review and
expansion.”
Environmentalists are also
seeking intervenor status in the
case fi led by the Association of
O&C Counties.
Based on history, it’s not
likely the Trump administra-
tion would overrule the envi-
ronmental intervenors to reach
a settlement scaling back the
monument’s size, said Karen
Budd-Falen, the natural re-
sources attorney.
“They can do that, but it
doesn’t happen very much,”
she said. “It’s really rare.”
The U.S. Interior Depart-
ment, which oversees the BLM
and the national monument, is
now headed by Ryan Zinke, a
former Montana congressman
who supports multiple use of
public lands, Budd-Falen said.
However, it’s still too early
to tell how much sway the In-
terior Department will have in
these cases, compared to the
infl uence of the U.S. Justice
Department, she said.
“I just don’t know how the
new administration will handle
it,” Budd-Falen said.
Obama’s impact
The Cascade-Siskiyou Na-
tional Monument is one of
several designations made by
the Obama administration that
have stirred controversy, said
Ethan Lane, executive direc-
tor of the Public Lands Coun-
cil, which advocates for cattle
grazing.
“It certainly has been on our
radar,” he said.
Altogether, the Obama ad-
ministration used the Antiqui-
ties Act to establish or expand
more than 30 national mon-
uments totaling 550 million
acres of land and water, Lane
said.
The massive scope of
Obama’s designations has
prompted calls for Trump to
shrink monument boundaries,
he said.
Theoretically, Trump could
decrease the size of these mon-
uments as swiftly as Obama
increased them, Lane said.
“There’s no red tape or analysis
or box-checking required.”
However, the overly liberal
use of the Antiquities Act —
which allows a president to
declare national monuments on
public land and restrict its uses
— has also compelled demands
to reform the statute, he said.
“It’s been turned from a
tool for protection into a large
land-planning tool, and that’s
just not what was intended,”
said Lane.
For example, Sen. Lisa
Murkowski, R-Alaska, has in-
troduced a bill that would re-
quire Congress to approve a na-
tional monument designation,
in addition to the governor and
legislature of the state it’s in.
That language, or similar
provisions, could also be rolled
into a broader package of legis-
lation, Lane said. “There are a
lot of resource issues that need
attention.”
Environmental groups that
support the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument see some
of the hardships claimed by the
ranching and timber industries
as overstated.
The Soda Mountain Wilder-
ness Council used private funds
to purchase grazing leases in
several allotments from willing
ranchers, said Dave Willis, the
organization’s chairman.
Ranchers who refused the
buyouts have continued graz-
ing cattle on some allotments
— such as Dixie and Buck
Mountain — that failed to meet
several grazing standards set
by BLM to improve rangeland
health, he said in an email.
Forest management isn’t
entirely banned within the
monument, as the proclamation
allows timber harvest that’s part
of an “authorized science-based
ecological restoration project,”
Willis said, citing the monu-
ment proclamation.
Much of the O&C Lands
within the expanded boundary
are classifi ed as “late-succes-
sional” and “riparian” reserves,
or have reforestation problems,
he said. “The ecological bene-
fi ts of protecting these relative-
ly very few acres exceed their
commercial timber volume
value.”
Monitoring data will be shared with ranchers
GRAZING from Page 1
Jim Pena on March 10 and
copied it to USFS Chief Tom
Tidwell stating the way the al-
lotments were monitored and
the issuance of the letters vio-
lated USFS policy. Non-com-
pliance letters are a fi rst step
in the loss of grazing rights, he
said.
“There appears to be a re-
luctance to resolve this issue
in an appropriate manner by
both (USFS Tonasket) Rang-
er Matt Reidy and (Okan-
ogan-Wenatchee
National
Forest) Supervisor Mike Wil-
liams,” Newhouse wrote to
Pena.
In a March 24 response,
Pena wrote that he fully sup-
ports grazing allotments, that
issues of concern arose from
monitoring and that non-com-
pliance letters did not mean
any decisions had been made
regarding permits.
“The Okanogan-Wenatchee
National Forest does not intend
to shorten, limit or in any other
way reduce permitted grazing
during the 2017 fi eld season,”
Pena wrote.
USFS personnel will work
“closely and collaboratively to
resolve issues” during Annual
Operating Instruction meetings
with ranchers this spring, Pena
wrote.
Monitoring data will be
shared with ranchers and joint
monitoring will take place this
season, he wrote.
But that does not “address
many of the issues the con-
3
British Columbia
Wash.
3
Area in detail
WASH.
Osoyoos
Lake
Oroville
97
Tonasket Ranger
District, Okanogan
National Forest
River
EPA from Page 1
‘We saw the writing on the wall. The end was near’
OKANOGAN
NATIONAL
FOREST
N
OKANOGAN
Tonasket
FERRY
21
97
5 miles
Twisp
20
Okanogan
EPA
supported
What’s
Upstream
between 2011
and 2016
March 31, 2017
Omak
155
20
Okanogan
COLVILLE
CONFEDERATED
TRIBES
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
gressman and ranchers have
raised over the monitoring pro-
cess having been conducted in
a manner that appears inconsis-
tent with USFS policy and pro-
cedures,” said Will Boyington,
a Newhouse spokesman.
“It’s nothing more than
horse manure and white wash,”
DeTro said of Pena’s letter.
One registered letter of
non-compliance for overgraz-
ing went to a permittee who
had no cows on the allotment,
DeTro said. In another case two
monitoring sites were not on
the rancher’s allotment, he said.
At the least those instances con-
stitute “gross negligence,” he
said.
Permittees were not notifi ed
or invited to participate in mon-
itoring despite a clear policy
requiring it, Newhouse wrote
in his March 10 letter to Pena.
None of the permittees were
warned of potential issues be-
fore receiving non-compliance
letters three months later and
none of them received any doc-
umentation, Newhouse wrote.
That also violates USFS pol-
icies, warrants a full review
and the non-compliance letters
should be voided or amended,
he wrote.
Reidy, the Tonasket ranger,
said policies were not violated
because permittees were told
during AOI meetings in 2016
that monitoring would occur.
Notifi cation requirements de-
pend on the circumstances, he
said.
“We will improve things
for 2017. We will call them
(permittees) a week before the
monitoring so they have an op-
portunity to join us. In 2016, we
didn’t do that in all instances,”
Reidy said. “I’m absolutely
committed to improving our
relationships, coordination and
communication.”
Newhouse wrote to Pena
that most of the permittees “are
third- and fourth-generation
families who have operated
the allotments for decades,”
have had good relations with
the USFS and never received
non-compliance letters.
The Washington Farm Bu-
reau and Cattle Producers of
Washington also sent letters
to the USFS objecting to the
non-compliance letters.
The unprecedented num-
ber of letters has “deeply in-
sulted these (rancher) families
and broken trust between the
agency and the public,” said
Nicole Kuchenbuch, a rancher
and president of the Okanogan
County Farm Bureau.
Lengthy meetings between
ranchers and Reidy resulted in
the ranger being unwilling to be
held accountable and refusing
to answer questions, Kuchen-
buch said.
“We had two meetings with
a small group of permittees and
ranching advocates and had
some really, really good discus-
sions,” Reidy said, adding that
he rescinded one letter because
he had made an honest mistake.
In the rest of the cases, he
said, letters of compliance will
be issued once monitoring
shows collective solutions have
worked.
Last season, a USFS range
technician threatened to bring
in federal marshals and have
a rancher arrested if he didn’t
have his cattle off an allotment
on time, said DeTro, who called
USFS actions like the “Gesta-
po.”
“Never before have we been
treated with such unwarrant-
ed disrespect from the Forest
Service. ... We are asking them
to rescind the letters and make
a good faith effort to rebuild
rapport in our community,”
Kuchenbuch said.
Kuchenbuch, Newhouse,
DeTro and the Washington
Farm Bureau made the point
that USFS ignored repeated
requests for proof that ranch-
ers had overgrazed, grazed in
unauthorized areas or damaged
streambanks.
One family was sent an of-
fi cial Freedom of Information
Act case number and a bill for
$175 even though it did not
submit a FOIA request but sim-
ply wanted access to its fi le,
Newhouse wrote to Pena. Ne-
whouse requested ranchers be
allowed full access to their fi les
without cost.
The large increase in
non-compliance letters was be-
cause more grazing violations
occurred because parts of the
allotments had been burned in
2015 wildfi res, Reidy said.
It’s taken time to compile
data supporting the non-com-
pliance letters but the infor-
mation is being shared in this
year’s AOIs, mailed or picked
up by ranchers at the district
ranger offi ce, he said.