Case: Biodiversity Conservation Alliance v. Butch Blazer, Ann Mills, USDA, and U.S. Forest Service
Advocates for the West filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service in Wyoming over the agency’s revised Forest Plan for the Medicine Bow National Forest. In the Medicine Bow Revised Forest Plan, the Forest Service provided measures to protect two bighorn sheep herds on the Forest, but admitted that a third herd on the Forest […]
Case: Winter Wildlands Alliance v. U.S. Forest Service
March 29, 2013 — Senior Attorney Laurie Rule received word that U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush had ruled in our favor. In his Court Decision, Judge Bush specifically calls out Executive Order 11644, stating that the Order – “requires an agency to promulgate regulations that provide for designation of areas of use and non-use […]
Case: Western Watersheds Project, Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and Utah Environmental Congress v. U.S. Forest Service
February 14, 2013 — U.S. Magistrate Judge Ron Bush ruled in our favor on all 4 challenged decisions allowing the U.S. Forest Service to forgo conducting environmental analysis on 43 grazing allotments in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. In 2010, Region 4 of the Forest Service renewed grazing permits for hundreds of allotments without conducting any […]
Case: Western Watersheds Project, Oregon Natural Desert Association and Ruby Pipeline Agree to Establish Conservation Funds
Ruby settlement established new conservation fund. Advocates for the West recently helped broker an innovative settlement between WWP and El Paso Pipeline Corp. to establish a $15 million Sagebrush Habitat Conservation Fund. The Fund will work to retire grazing permits on a willing seller basis to mitigate for impacts of the 650-mile Ruby natural gas […]
Case: Western Watersheds Project v. Bureau of Land Management, J.R. Broadbent Grazing Assoc., LLC
August 15, 2008 — An Administrative Law Judge with the Dept. of Interior’s Office of Hearings and Appeals agreed with us that BLM thus violated NEPA in approving the grazing permits; and ordered them reversed and remanded with instructions for BLM to prepare a full environmental analysis. The Granger and Carter Lease allotments encompass 720,000 […]
Case: Western Watersheds Project v. U.S. Forest Service
The Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming has only a relic population of bighorn sheep, which die when they come into contact with domestic sheep grazing on the public lands. Yet the Forest Service continues to authorize sheep grazing in bighorn habitat, and did not evaluate grazing alternatives to the status quo when it recently revised […]
Case: Western Watersheds Project v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
February 3, 2010 — Advocates for the West sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its violation of the Endangered Species Act in refusing to determine if the pygmy rabbit warrants protection under the ESA. This case is now the third time we have had to sue the Service for its continued and repeated […]