NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
A7
Feds face suit
Court upholds grazing allotment
over RDA records
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
EUGENE — Federal land
managers are facing a lawsuit
alleging they’ve violated the
Freedom of Information Act by
failing to timely release docu-
ments about the controversial
River Democracy Act.
Nearly 4,700 miles of rivers
and streams in Oregon would
be federally designated as “wild
and scenic” under the bill, which
critics fear would restrict log-
ging and grazing, among other
activities.
The legislation was intro-
duced by Oregon Sens. Ron
Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who
claim the bill would shield prop-
erty rights from adverse eff ects
while tripling the number of
river miles with “wild and sce-
nic” protections in the state.
Federal land managers tes-
tifi ed about the bill before a
congressional
subcommit-
tee last year, which prompted a
FOIA request from the Western
Resources Legal Center, a legal
education nonprofi t.
“To date, we have not been
provided with any information
and therefore resorted to legal
recourse under the Freedom of
Information Act,” said Caro-
line Lobdell, the organization’s
executive director.
“The public should not have
to wait for the proposed per-
manent designations to occur
before they are allowed to
understand the legislation,” she
said in an email.
Testimony at the hearing
indicated government offi cials
have an “enhanced understand-
ing of the process, basis, and
potential impacts” of adding
waterways to the Wild and Sce-
nic River System, according to
the legal center’s lawsuit.
For example, the testimony
included information about how
many river miles and surround-
ing acres managed by the U.S.
Forest Service and U.S. Bureau
of Land Management would
would be aff ected by the bill.
The hearing revealed that
government offi cials “spent
signifi cant time analyzing” the
legislation’s “eff ect and meth-
ods of enforcement,” includ-
ing the need to develop “com-
prehensive river management
plans” that guide how it would
be implemented, according to
the legal center.
The legal center wants to
access that information to better
explain the River Democracy
Act to the public and its constitu-
ents, such as farmers and ranch-
ers, who may “rely on public
lands for their livelihood.”
In late October and early
November of 2021, the center
submitted FOIA requests for
records pertaining to the River
Democracy Act, including con-
gressional
communications
related to the hearing.
No determinations regard-
ing the FOIA requests have yet
been made by the Forest Ser-
vice, the Bureau of Land Man-
agement or their government
overseers — the USDA and
Interior Department — even
though legally mandated dead-
lines have passed, the complaint
said.
In light of the “months-long
delay” and “lack of communi-
cation,” the plaintiff believes
the government “seeks to hide
records from the public” regard-
ing its interpretation of the bill,
the complaint said.
The federal agencies had not
yet responded to requests for
comment about the lawsuit as of
press time.
The River Democracy Act
has “signifi cant implications”
for managing roughly 3 mil-
lion acres of “fi re prone forests”
in the state, and it stands to rea-
son that government offi cials
testifi ed “based on information,
data, and analysis provided to
them,” Lobdell said.
JOHN ROEHM
CONSTRUCTION, INC.
General Contractor
EUGENE — U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Michael McShane
has dismissed a lawsuit fi led
by environmental advocates
who claimed the U.S. For-
est Service unlawfully autho-
rized grazing in the 165,000-
acre Antelope Allotment
of the Fremont-Winema
National Forest.
“The Forest Service made
a rational decision when it
decided on a course of action
that included continued graz-
ing in the Antelope Allot-
ment,” McShane said.
The most recent graz-
ing plans for the allotment
opened up more land for
grazing to encourage cattle
to disperse instead of congre-
gating in areas inhabited by
the threatened Oregon spot-
ted frog.
The Concerned Friends of
the Winema and four other
environmental
nonprofi ts
fi led a federal lawsuit in 2019
alleging the agency’s graz-
ing plans were “unsupported
and irrational” in violation of
the Endangered Species Act,
National Environmental Pol-
icy Act and National Forest
Management Act.
The judge has now
rejected all those arguments,
ruling that the government
adequately analyzed live-
stock impacts on the threat-
ened Oregon spotted frog in
light of climate change and
other stressors.
The eff ects of climate
change were front and cen-
ter during oral arguments
between the environmental
plaintiff s and the Forest Ser-
vice in May.
McShane has now dis-
agreed with allegations that
climate change was ignored
in the “BiOp,” or biologi-
cal opinion, that examined
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press, File
Cattle graze in an Oregon national forest in this Capital Press fi le photo. A judge has rejected
a lawsuit that opposed grazing on 165,000 acres of national forest land in Southeast Oregon.
whether grazing would jeop-
ardize the spotted frog’s exis-
tence under the Endangered
Species Act.
The BiOp recognized that
drought was “probably the
most severe threat” to the
population of frogs in Jack
Creek, which runs through
the allotment, and that his-
toric population losses may
potentially be attributed to
climate change and invasive
species, the judge said.
As to the specifi c future
eff ect of climate change on
the species, the plaintiff s
“failed to point to any study”
that federal offi cials should
have consulted, he said. The
absence of research on this
subject led the government to
conclude that any predictions
would be “uncertain.”
“As no studies at the time
examined the eff ects of cli-
mate change on the Oregon
spotted frog, any further dis-
cussion by the agency on this
issue would have been specu-
lative,” McShane said.
Even so, the govern-
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including wetlands and moist
meadows, the judge said.
“Plaintiff s’
argument
plainly ignores the agency’s
fi ndings that the grazing plan
will result in ‘greater periods
of forage recovery as well
as reduced impacts to soils
associated with trampling,’
and ‘more effi cient use of
resources and a greater like-
lihood of population recov-
ery’ as compared to the status
quo,” he said.
The environmental groups
argued there’s no “scien-
tifi c or practical support”
for the most recent grazing
plan allowing livestock onto
20,000 additional acres of
the allotment, but the judge
rejected this claim.
“The
administrative
record contains suffi cient
support for the Forest Ser-
vice to rationally predict that
better dispersal, and there-
fore decreased impacts, will
occur under the new grazing
management plan as com-
pared to status quo graz-
ing,” he said.
TOM CHRISTENSEN
CHRISTENSEN
TOM
LICENSED AND BONDED
RESIDENTIAL
ment took a “hard look” at
past weather data as well as
“future expected trends of
increased average tempera-
tures, reduced snowpack,
and other eff ects of climate
change” in an environmental
study required by NEPA, the
judge said.
Aside from climate
change, this “fi nal environ-
mental impact statement,”
or FEIS, also complied with
the legal requirements of the
National Forest Management
Act, the judge said.
“The Forest Service ade-
quately assessed the viabil-
ity of Oregon spotted frog,
sensitive plants, mollusks,
and other sensitive species
in the FEIS and expert bot-
any report, ultimately fi nding
that the new grazing frame-
work would not impair these
species’ viability,” McShane
said.
Contrary to the lawsuit’s
claims, the government did
not disregard the national
forest plan’s goals improve
conditions in riparian areas,
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Hello Grant County,
Welcome New Members
We would like to welcome our newest
Chamber Members: Prairie City RV Park and
Frontier Childcare Resource and Referral.
Remember, all Chamber members have
a page on the Chamber’s website – www.
gcoregonlive.com. Check them out!
Election Results
Dave Driscoll was re-elected to the Grant
County Chamber Board of Directors at our
June Board meeting. There were no other
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Our officers for the next year will be: Sherrie 541-620-2638 • etc.handmade@yahoo.com
Rininger – President, Taci Philbrook – Pres-
ident-Elect, and Sally Knowles – Vice Presi-
dent. The Board of Directors with remaining
terms are: Jerry Franklin, Bruce Ward, Greg
Armstrong, Amber Wright, Harsh Patel and
Kelly Workman.
No Host Luncheons Will Resume
We are excited to announce that we are go-
ing to have our No-Host Luncheons follow-
ing our board meetings again starting July
21st. Our Guest speakers will be Megan
Brandsma and Laci Wheeler from Frontier
Childcare Resource and Referral. We will be
holding our meeting at the John Day Golf
Club. Our business meeting starts at 10:30
am and the luncheon will follow at noon.
The menu for lunch is Chicken Cordon Bleu
with some salad options, drinks and des-
sert. The cost is $15 per person. Salad only
will be $5. We would like those planning to
eat lunch to RSVP by Friday, July 15th so
we can let them know how many to expect.
Please call us at 541-575-1547or email me
at – gcadmin@gcoregonlive.com. We hope
www.dukewarnerrealtyofeasternoregon.com
to see you there!
Lori Hickerson
Sally Knowles
Babette Larson
Principal Broker, GRI
Broker, GRI
Broker, GRI
Office: 541-575-2617
Office: 541-932-4493
Office: 541-987-2363
Cycle Oregon – Ride the Painted Hills –
September 11 – 17
Cycle Oregon will be here before we know it.
We are busy trying to prepare for this awe-
some event. We want to make sure to show
them a big Grant County welcome! They will
be spending time in three of our communi-
ties and the event will bring a lot of people to
our county. So, let’s get ready! John Day,
Monument and Dayville are looking forward
to meeting a lot of great cyclists, and Cycle
Oregon is excited to be coming here!
Digital Sign
We are very pleased with our new digital
sign! We have been hearing a lot of positive
comments about it.
Our Volunteers are Fantastic!
We would like to give a shout out to our vol-
unteers. They do a fantastic job and we are
so grateful to have them! Thank you Dor-
man Gregory, Karen Jacobs, Jim Soupir,
Sherry Feiger, Chuck Wilson, Nicki Cohoe,
Suzette De Cew, and Elaine Husted! We ap-
preciate all you do for us!
Enjoy the summer!
Tammy Bremner, Executive Director
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