TERI FIGUEROA/Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — Ranchers fighting to keep their cattle on public lands suffered a small defeat and won a small victory this week — they may have to stop the grazing, but they won the right to administrative appeal.

A federal judge approved — with no changes — the portion of a recent out-of-court settlement limiting when and where cattle can graze on lands maintained by the Bureau of Land Management.

But U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s ruling also gave the ranchers the right to demonstrate to the BLM and to the Department of the Interior that changing the rules is unlawful.

Under existing law, ranchers with BLM permits have the right to appeal any decisions the government makes that could affect the way they use the land.

Under the ruling, BLM law takes precedent over the terms of the settlement.

At the center of the land use tug-of-war is an out-of-court settlement announced Jan. 18 that slaps tight restrictions on livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use and mining in the High Desert, and provides temporary protection to 24 endangered plants and animals until the BLM develops permanent guidelines.

The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and two other environmental groups filed the suit in March. It claims the BLM failed to fully take into account the effects its land use decisions have on threatened and endangered species in the region.

Among other concessions, the BLM agreed to restrict cattle grazing on 285,000 acres of desert tortoise habitat from March to June and September to November. The agreement also forbids year-round cattle grazing on some 43,000 acres of tortoise habitat.

Dave Fisher, chairman of the High Desert Cattleman’s Association, said the land use settlement threatens the livelihood of the seven ranchers who graze cattle on BLM land in the High Desert.

Last April, Alsup denied ranchers the right to intervene in the lawsuit — but granted that right to recreational groups.

Last week, Fisher’s attorneys elbowed their way into the courtroom by slapping down a lawsuit of their own. They claimed the settlement denied the ranchers the right to appeal the terms of the settlement. Alsup heard their case Jan. 26 and invited them to stay for the BLM proceedings.

The judge released his ruling Monday.

“All objections have been considered,” Alsup wrote in his decision. “Their objections are not sufficient to defeat settlement.”

A desert ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity said he expected Alsup to approve the settlement agreement despite the 11th-hour plea from the ranchers.

“The judge heard them out,” Daniel Patterson said, “and decided it wasn’t going to ruin them.”

Tim Salt, manager of BLM California Desert District, said the BLM will soon issue the ranchers a formal decision enforcing the provisions of the settlement. Then, ranchers will have to fight their battle largely in the administrative processes of the BLM.

“(Alsup’s) order reiterated that the ranchers still have due process rights,” Richard Walden, attorney for rancher Dave Fisher, said.

One of Fisher’s attorneys said the ranchers would take advantage of the administrative appeal.

“The fear we expressed (to the judge) was that the BLM was going to run out and kick the cattle off the land on March 15,” Richard Walden said. “We’re going to do everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

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By TERI FIGUEROA/Staff Writer

BARSTOW — Dave Fisher just may have elbowed his way into a federal lawsuit. Now he’s digging in his heels for a fight.

Just as his family has for four generations, Fisher grazes cattle in the desert. His father started homesteading in Newberry Springs in 1927 — on a checkerboard mix of public and private lands — about two decades before the Bureau of Land Management existed.

Now, Fisher says, the proposed settlement the BLM recently signed with a coalition of environmental groups may mean the end of his way of life — and the life he’s teaching to his grandchildren.

The out-of-court settlement, announced Jan. 19, gives temporary protection to 24 endangered plants and animals while the agency seeks biological opinions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Among other concessions, the BLM agreed to restrict cattle grazing on 285,000 acres of desert tortoise habitat from March to June and September to November.

Fisher, chairman of the High Desert Cattleman’s Association, said the land-use settlement threatens the livelihood of the seven stubborn ranchers who remain on the land.

“BLM ignored us and went to bed with this environmental group,” Fisher said. “This will ruin us.”

But Fisher and the six other ranchers who graze cattle on BLM lands in the High Desert may get their day in court after all.

The lawsuit

Filed in March, the lawsuit pits environmental protections against ranchers, miners, off-roaders and others who use land in the 33-million-acre California Desert Conservation Area.

At the heart of the suit is BLM's management of the California Desert Conservation Area, a 25-million-acre chunk of Southern California.

BLM manages about 11 million acres of that area.

The environmental groups are led by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. The group — along with the Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — claimed the agency failed to fully consider the effects of land-use decisions on threatened and endangered species in the region. And, they said, the law requires BLM to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Soon after the coalition slapped BLM with the suit, federal judge on the case granted five other organizations “intervenor” status. All five groups, including the Blue Ribbon Coalition and the High Desert Multiple Use Coalition, primarily represent recreational groups.

In April, when Fisher also tried to join in the suit, the judge denied his request.

“Our organization works with cattle ranchers and small mining operations, but we don’t have the expertise to represent them,” Ron Schiller, chairman of the High Desert Multiple Use Coalition, said Friday. “To say we were representing their interests is wrong. Their interests were not represented. They’ve not had their say.”

Fisher agreed.

“The only way to understand it is to make your living at it,” he said.

Federal court decisions

On Friday, the BLM, the environmental groups and the intervening parties stood before the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, hoping the judge would bless their agreement.

But Fisher and his attorney, Karen Budd Falen, may have jockeyed themselves a spot in the courtroom.

On Thursday, Falen filed suit against the BLM, one day before the judge was set to rule on the portion of the lawsuit that would regulate cattle grazing.

At 9 a.m. Friday morning, she got her chance to tell it to the judge. Afterward, he let her stay for the rest of the proceedings, then postponed his decision to approve the grazing portions of the out-of-court settlement.

“These permittees have due process rights,” Falen said. “The BLM can’t just kick them off.”

Tortoise versus cattle

Fisher and the other ranchers said grazing does not harm the lands. In fact, they say, it helps keep the land fruitful and replenished.

Falen said she successfully argued on the side of the ranchers in a 1995 Nevada case.

“It was with the BLM in Clark County,” Fallen said. “It was the same tortoise, the same type of case.”

The environmental groups disagree.

“That is totally unsupported by science,” Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist from the Center for Biological Diversity, said Saturday. “”Cattle and sheep eat the same food as the desert tortoise. There’s no way they can compete with a herd of cow for food.”

Patterson said the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan, set forth in 1994, recommends the removal of all cattle grazing from desert lands.

“This settlement we reached is far below that,” he said. “This was a negotiated compromise. The desert is a fragile ecosystem.  We’re not talking about lush greenery.

“Where is the compelling national interest in giving these seven ranchers everything they want? Nobody is being put out. All they have to do is make adjustments to grazing.

“The desert tortoise has been there 67 million years. In 100 years of grazing, the tortoise has gone from very common to the threatened species list.

“This is not an anti-ranching agenda. This is a pro endangered and threatened species agenda. ... Ranchers and miners will yell loudly, but a lot of silent people think this is good.”

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TERI FIGUEROA/Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — First District Supervisor Bill Postmus said Thursday he asked the federal government to withdraw -or at least slap a temporary stay on — a recent settlement between the Bureau of Land Management and a coalition of environmental groups.

“We are asking the Department of the Interior to ask the Department of Justice to withdraw the stipulation,” he said. “It is possible for the Department of Justice to do that.”

Postmus said he made the request Thursday morning to Chad Calvert, a member of President Bush’s transitional staff at the Department of the Interior.

Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity — the lead environmental group in the lawsuit -said if the Department of Justice withdrew the “hard-fought” agreement, it would be “a very extreme and radical move.

“This is a fair, negotiated settlement,” he said. “I can’t see that happening with such a well-crafted settlement.”

Also on Thursday, the federal judge handling the case granted a request from the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to push back until Feb. 5 the deadline to file its input on the settlement.

Postmus, spearheading the county effort, said many desert mining, ranching and off-road groups asked him to fight the signed agreement.

“The problem is they didn’t come to the county, or to the cattlemen or to the miners to get our input on this case,” Postmus said.

But Patterson said that in addition to the BLM, other parties to the lawsuit — including mining operators, cattle ranchers and off-road organizations — signed off on the settlement.

“If it’s a deal they can live with, that shows that it’s fair,” he said. “It’s not in the interest of the American people to have their public lands trashed.”

At the center of the land-use tug-of-war is an out-of-court settlement signed Jan. 19 that slaps tight restrictions on livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use and mining in the High Desert.

On Jan. 19, the BLM and a coalition of environmental groups announced the settlement from a lawsuit filed in March against the BLM.

The lawsuit, filed in March by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, claims the agency failed to fully take into account the effects its land-use decisions have on threatened and endangered species in the region.

The newly announced settlement provides temporary protection to 24 endangered plants and animals while the BLM develops permanent guidelines.

As an early concession, the BLM agreed in September to temporarily close the Imperial Sand Dunes — commonly known as Glamis-to protect an endangered plant. The site, which remains closed, is a favorite destination for off-roaders.

Patterson said the settlement “jump starts” species protection and still allows sustainable and recreational use in the desert.

Among the temporary land closures are roads designated in Newberry/Rodman, Superior, Fremont, Kramer, Red and Ord areas and mountains.

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TERI FIGUEROA/Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — First District Supervisor Bill Postmus slammed a federal land agency for an out-of-court settlement that slaps tight restrictions on livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use and mining in the High Desert- and he plans to take political measures to halt it.

Postmus blasted the Bureau of Land Management for what he says is a lack of consultation with San Bernardino County officials during the federal agency’s land-use settlement with an environmental coalition.

“Because the BLM is showing such disregard for the citizens who live and work and own property in the desert, my strong inclination is to pull San Bernardino County off the steering committee and super group currently working with the BLM in writing the West Mojave Plan,” he said in a written statement.

That threat may stand, he continued, unless “something is done to reverse some of these actions which are tantamount to agreeing to shut down the desert.”

The West Mojave Plan is one of four plans the BLM is hammering out to nail down rules for land-use on federal lands in the California desert.

The county supervisor said he plans to ask U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, and the Bush Administration to put a stay on the settlement, which he said is “apparently an eleventh-hour move by the outgoing (Clinton) administration.”

And, Postmus said, on Tuesday he will ask the county Board of Supervisors to submit a legal objection to the settlement in federal court.

On Thursday, the BLM and a coalition of environmental groups announced the settlement agreement from a lawsuit filed in March.

The lawsuit, filed by environmental groups and spearheaded by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, claimed the agency
failed to fully consider the effects of land-use decisions on threatened and endangered species in the region.

The newly announced settlement provides temporary protection to 24 endangered plants and animals while the BLM develops permanent guidelines.

Among the temporary land closures are roads designated in Newberry/Rodman, Superior, Fremont, Kramer, Red and Ord areas and mountains.

Tim Salt, BLM California Desert District manager, said most of the land closures are temporary, pending an official biological opinion from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Although both sides signed off on the agreement last week, it still faces approval by the federal courts.

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