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Ranchers fight to keep grazing in Grant County (OR)
The Oregonian ^ | May 9, 2009 | Richard Cockle

Posted on 05/10/2009 11:10:52 AM PDT by jazusamo

JOHN DAY -- Ranchers and environmentalists have locked horns over cattle grazing for years. Now a battered economy and a looming court decision are fueling a full-on battle in Grant County.

On one side, ranchers and the county chairman say proposed grazing limits could deal a knockout punch to more than a dozen cattle operations and, because of job losses and lost tax revenue, county social services.

On the other side, an environmental group says wild steelhead are in decline because of stream bank damage caused by grazing cattle.

"The mood here is not good," says Mark Webb, chairman of Grant County commissioners in Canyon City. "A lot of livelihoods" ride on the pending ruling by U.S. District Judge Ancer Haggerty in Portland. A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 9.

The debate affects an eastern Oregon county that has twice the space of Delaware but just 7,500 residents. Grant County is so sparsely populated that it has only one stoplight and three fast-food restaurants, plus a one-night-a-week movie theater in an old Rebekah Lodge. Towns are tiny, with frontier-style buildings harking to the gold rush.

More than 60 percent of the county's land is federally owned, and the John Day River system has more miles designated as wild and scenic than any in the nation.

Unemployment at 18.8 percent in county

The recession has hit the county especially hard. The unemployment rate in March, according to figures by the Oregon Employment Department, was 18.8 percent, compared with 12.9 percent statewide and 9 percent nationwide.

At issue are six grazing allotments on U.S. Forest Service land. The allotments, all in the Malhuer National Forest, encompass about 250,000 acres across a vast tapestry of mountains, canyons, meadows and pine forests.

Three environmental groups, including the Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert Association, filed a request April 10 for an injunction that would banish cattle from the allotments.

Brent Fenty, the group's executive director, says damage in the allotments is severe and threatens the survival of native Middle Columbia steelhead, federally listed as threatened in 1999.

"Something needs to be done about it," he says.

Fenty says the environmental group has collected data over a decade that show steelhead runs far below historic levels.

17 ranches use six allotments

Webb, the county chairman, says 17 ranches use the six allotments and that long-term closures could drive at least half of them out of business, worsening unemployment. The drop in tax revenues, in turn, would shrink funds for social services, hurting even Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day, he says.

And Webb says an injunction could actually hurt steelhead habitat by shifting cattle to private ranchland, where overgrazing could occur along streams. On the ungrazed federal land, grass could grow out of control in summer, raising wildfire risk. And ranches could even be broken up, he says, resulting in homebuilding and loss of rangeland and habitat.

Environmentalists, he says, forget how much fish and wildlife habitat ranches provide.

Spencer Hovekamp, spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Grande, says the injunction, if granted, would mean eight allotments in the Upper and Lower John Day River and its North Fork and Middle Fork subbasins would be closed to livestock. Two allotments were closed by a May 2008 ruling.

He traces the grazing debate to two decades of fighting over timber sales in national forests. Without logging, tree canopies have expanded, he says, shading out grass. Cattle migrate toward streams, he says, where grass is more plentiful.

He declined to comment on steelhead numbers, saying only that the fish are not recovered. He says it's possible to have both steelhead and cattle on the Malheur National Forest, though it may mean more fences and more cowboys tracking cattle on horseback.

The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees

Ranchers, meanwhile, have formed a legal defense fund to fight for cattle grazing: The Five Rivers Grazing Permittees. The group's 42 Grant County ranchers have assessed themselves $10,000 each for attorney fees, says co-chairman Ken Holliday of John Day.

Holliday, 53, says cattle are sometimes blamed for stream bank damage caused by elk and wild horses. He also says a rule prohibiting more than 10 percent stream bank disturbance on some allotments was grabbed out of the sky by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The rule couldn't be met even if no cattle were present, he says.

Environmentalists "are beating ranchers over the head and trying to put us out of business," he says. "I don't understand it."

In February, about 500 supporters showed up at a benefit auction at the Grant County Fairgrounds, raising $77,000 for ranchers' legal costs.

But as bills mount, Holliday says, ranchers may not be able to keep up the fight much longer.



TOPICS: Agriculture; Business/Economy; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: cattle; envirnment; environuts; grantcounty; landrights; oregon; propertyrights; ranching
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Richard Cockle/The Oregonian

Ken Holliday is among Grant County ranchers who have banded together to fight for grazing rights on public land. Environmentalists are seeking to ban grazing on six Malheur National Forest sites, saying cattle trample stream banks and damage steelhead habitat. Holliday says a ban would force ranches out of business and cause other problems. "There's a lot of increased fire danger when nobody's grazing cows," he says

1 posted on 05/10/2009 11:10:52 AM PDT by jazusamo
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To: george76; girlangler; Flycatcher; Salvation

Enviros won’t be happy until every steer is off BLM and Forest Service land and raised in feed lots.


2 posted on 05/10/2009 11:12:55 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Good folks in Grant County. VERY conservative. I almost moved there.


3 posted on 05/10/2009 11:16:06 AM PDT by AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925; Foreigners 2008)
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To: jazusamo

These enviro nazis have overstepped their bounds, no one elected them to anything, they are strickly self-appointed terrorists. I feel terribly sorry for the ranchers and farmers who are losing the war against these useless people. However, electing the moronic Senator there says much about the PC thinking that has infected many Oregonians. Sad.


4 posted on 05/10/2009 11:21:37 AM PDT by Rockiette (Democrats are not intelligent)
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To: AuntB

I have relatives in Harney County and it’s the same, the folks there good people also. When areas are as sparsely populated as those counties people look out for one another.


5 posted on 05/10/2009 11:23:38 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Rockiette

There’s not a lot of money in ranching contrary to what many believe. Ranchers are very hard pressed to keep up with the constant attacks from the enviro nutjobs who play to the emotions of the do-gooder city people to raise millions.


6 posted on 05/10/2009 11:26:48 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo
Environmentalists "are beating ranchers over the head and trying to put us out of business," he says. "I don't understand it."

What's not to understand? Environmentalists are absolutely clueless about private property rights and that private landholders can actually be GREAT stewards of the land. Private landholders & ranchers have to be. They make their livelihood from it.

Thanks for the ping, Jaz.

7 posted on 05/10/2009 11:30:33 AM PDT by Flycatcher (God speaks to us, through the supernal lightness of birds, in a special type of poetry.)
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To: jazusamo

One of the great things about private ownership is that the owners tend to care about their property.

Grazing on public land does not have this selfish incentive, in fact, it seems somewhat socialist.

Logging on public land has the same drawbacks.


8 posted on 05/10/2009 11:38:27 AM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: Flycatcher

Well said, Fly. And without being able to graze cattle on lease land it will run the smaller private ranchers out of business. They can’t buy enough land to make a go of it and most of the lease land is not used by the public anyway.


9 posted on 05/10/2009 11:38:28 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Flycatcher

“private property rights”

Is this about private land or public land?


10 posted on 05/10/2009 11:40:33 AM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: Born to Conserve

Ranchers act as stewards of the land on leases in Eastern OR, I know that for a fact.


11 posted on 05/10/2009 11:41:04 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

“Ranchers act as stewards of the land on leases”

Stewards or not, it is not their land, and they have no long term incentive to protect it.


12 posted on 05/10/2009 11:42:57 AM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: jazusamo
Ranchers were there before the Enviro trash were and it is not their land it is ours and I have no problem with the grazing.
13 posted on 05/10/2009 11:45:11 AM PDT by Cheetahcat (Osamabama Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: Born to Conserve

The incentive they have is knowing they’ll be out of business without it. Many of the ranches I’m familiar with have been in operation over half a century and longer and have used those leases.


14 posted on 05/10/2009 11:47:22 AM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Lets differentiate between public and private land


15 posted on 05/10/2009 11:59:08 AM PDT by BooBoo1000 (Some times I wake up grumpy, other times I let her sleep/)
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To: BooBoo1000

I believe it has been differentiated here. Lease land is public land and ranches I’m familiar with have their private land but also lease public lands for grazing.


16 posted on 05/10/2009 12:04:28 PM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Born to Conserve
Stewards or not, it is not their land, and they have no long term incentive to protect it.

Grazing on lands in the West is essential in keeping wildfires down as they keep the grasses shorter which curtails spreading of fires, something that was previously taken care of by other animals (elk, buffalo).

It is in the public interest for the ranchers to use that land for grazing. It also keeps the price of meat down, just as logging on public lands reduces the cost of housing.
17 posted on 05/10/2009 12:07:04 PM PDT by microgood
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To: jazusamo

http://www.orcattle.com/Press%20Releases/Five.Rivers2.27.09.htm


18 posted on 05/10/2009 12:15:23 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: Born to Conserve; GladesGuru; editor-surveyor; familyop
Just more BS from the eco-wackos trying to kill the entire state economy so they can use it as their back yard
19 posted on 05/10/2009 12:19:41 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

Thanks for linking that, George. It’s good to see people coming together to fight the enviros and USFS over these issues.


20 posted on 05/10/2009 12:20:13 PM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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