Court Sides With Cattle Ranchers In Grazing Lawsuit

(Guy McCarthy, Union Democrat)

EL DORADO COUNTY, CALIF. — A five-year effort by environmentalists to sue the Stanislaus National Forest, its grazing permittees association, a group of ranchers, the California Farm Bureau, and the state Cattlemen’s Association over three livestock grazing allotments on federal land hit a roadblock last week.

The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of the forest and grazing backers in a 29-page opinion filed April 8. The ruling is a setback for the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte and Sierra Forest Legacy in El Dorado County, which began their efforts to sue back in March 2017.

CSERC and Sierra Forest Legacy alleged the U.S. Forest Service’s allowance of livestock grazing on allotments at Bell Meadow, Eagle Meadow and Herring Creek led to fecal matter runoff that polluted streams in the area and violated the federal Clean Water Act by failing to comply with requirements of the state’s Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.

The Forest Service issues grazing permits for the allotments at Bell Meadow, Eagle Meadow and Herring Creek, and in other parts of the forest.

The appellate court in San Francisco found the government has not been shown to have violated reporting or discharge restrictions. The environmentalists were effectively asking the appellate court to hold that the allowance of livestock grazing should be prohibited or restricted because it assertedly contributes, perhaps with other contributing causes, to a failure to achieve certain levels of water quality.

That’s the job of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, not the federal courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in its April 8 opinion.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Fresno had already rejected the environmental groups’ challenges to the government’s allowance of livestock grazing in three areas of the Stanislaus National Forest in August 2019. Last week, the appellate court in San Francisco ruled against the environmentalists’ October 2020 appeal of that August 2019 decision.

Presiding District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill in Fresno wrote in August 2019 that he is “sympathetic to the concerns that sparked this lawsuit. Technical violations of water quality standards persist, and the process in place to address them is moving at a glacial pace. Yet, the structure of the regulatory regimes at issue in this case grants state water quality regulators great flexibility in their dealings with the Forest Service, which is, in turn, working cooperatively with regulators to address water quality issues. Likewise, the Forest Service is entitled to deference in its achievement of compliance with the various goals set forth in the Forest Plan.”

John Buckley, the CSERC executive director, said Friday that CSERC and Sierra Forest Legacy filed suit against the Forest Service five years ago “for the agency allowing poorly managed livestock grazing to pollute forest streams and damage meadows and riparian areas in the Sierra Nevada.”

Buckley said the federal appeals court decision means it is up to the regional water board to charge the Forest Service with water quality violations, and not up to a citizen or organization.

As a result of the April 8 ruling, the Forest Service will not be required to minimize pollution of forest streams by livestock as CSERC and Sierra Forest Legacy had urged, Buckley said Friday.

“The ruling is a major disappointment,” Buckley said. “For many years we’ve provided the Forest Service with test results from an independent laboratory that showed repeated water quality violations in forest streams flowing through areas where cattle graze for weeks at a time. Year after year, we’ve shared additional evidence of stream pollution at levels that pose health risks to forest visitors. And year after year, the Forest Service has shrugged off the evidence of violations – at one point suggesting that recreational visitors should bring water filters to the forest when they visit. For the court to accept the agency’s excuses is deeply frustrating.”

Sue Britting with Sierra Forest Legacy said Friday that on three grazing allotments affecting 51,000 acres of public forest land, biologists repeatedly documented water quality violations.

Also of high concern, Britting said, poorly managed livestock consistently have degraded and trampled habitat that is critical for threatened and endangered species — and many other kinds of wildlife.

“Yet after 10 years of agency planning for the three grazing allotments, the USFS decided not to take any action and to simply allow the status quo level of livestock use to continue,” Britting said. “It is highly troubling that the court has determined that no changes in Forest Service livestock management are needed.”

In March 2017, Buckley said the original legal action stemmed from a decade of communications with the Forest Service about livestock pollution of forest meadows and streams. He said the goal of the legal action was to protect water quality, public health, and at-risk resources, not to halt livestock grazing on national forest lands.[

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Beth Martinez, the acting forest supervisor, said Friday, “The recent court decision affirms that grazing is an appropriate use of NFS lands when law, regulation and policy are followed. The Stanislaus National Forest works hard with all stakeholders to ensure that our associated standards and guidelines are met.”

Ranchers have been grazing cattle in the mountain forests of the Stanislaus River watershed and Tuolumne River watershed that comprise much of today’s Stanislaus National Forest since before the federal forest was created in February 1897 and before the Forest Service itself was created in 1905.

A Stanislaus National Forest web page devoted to “Cattle grazing after the Rim Fire” states, “Grazing on public lands has always been one of the multiple uses that the national forests were set aside to provide.”

The forest oversees 26 active grazing permits “managed by roughly the same number of ranching families,” Martinez said. “Most ranchers we work with are multi-generational, and multiple families may be involved in managing the grazing operation.”

The California Cattlemen’s Association used to have a web page devoted to “Cattle & the Environment” that stated, “Ranchers are truly environmentalists at heart. As hardworking people who love working outdoors, no one cares for the land, water and air like beef producers. Environmental stewardship and best practices for green farming go hand-in-hand with managing a successful and long-term family business.”

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