The fight between ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management is brewing in full force with angry ranchers now carrying a petition from Bodega Bay, Calif., to Wash., D.C., on horseback as part of the Cowboy Express Grass March, which began Sept. 25.
The marchers/riders stopped in Battle Mountain Sept. 30 and are planning to deliver the petition to the Capitol Building in mid-October. The petition calls for the ousting of BLM Battle Mountain District Manager Doug Furtado and claims he ignored the pleas of residents in several counties and reduced and impeded agriculture, mining, recreation and hunting.
Ranchers are angry over the partial closure of the Argenta Allotment on Mt. Lewis and say that the BLM has overstepped its boundaries, a move that could put them out of business if their cows are not allowed to graze in the area. They are hoping this march will raise awareness of their plight.
Pete Tomera, of the Tomera Ranches, who rode on horseback with the protesters from Carson City to Elko on Sept. 29 and 30, said the nine portions of the Argenta Allotment, the summer and fall use areas, that were closed to his ranch's cattle are where the feed is. The areas they are allowed on have no feed, he said. He added that they are also being forced to haul water on rough terrain.
"What we're trying to do is, basically, the main thing we need to do is to be able to turn our cows out and that's why, cause we have not been able to get Doug Furtado to let us run our cows," Tomera said. "Nobody wants to fight but the problem is we've got to stay alive but the way they've shut this down, we are going to go broke or have to sell the ranches and that's why we're fighting."
But others see the issue differently.
"Doug Furtado should be praised, not pilloried, for doing his job," Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade said on the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) website. "The Cowboy Express is actually a cynical attempt to use iconic imagery to mask selfish abuse of public lands. If ranchers will not be responsible stewards then conscientious land managers have to make hard decisions, as Doug Furtado has done."
Rudy Evenson, deputy chief of communications for the BLM's state office, issued a statement on behalf of the BLM.
It says the ranching community has worked closely with the BLM in Nevada to make appropriate adjustments and nearly half of Nevada's public land ranchers have voluntarily reduced the number of cows that they have on the range.
"BLM Nevada attempted to work with the individuals who graze their cows on an area of public lands known as the Argenta Allotment to develop a plan for reduced use that would correspond to the current drought conditions," it states. "These cooperative efforts were rejected which forced the Bureau of Land Management to temporarily prohibit grazing on the parts of the Argenta Allotment that had already surpassed recommended use levels."
Activist Grant Gerber, who is also an attorney and an Elko County commissioner, who helped to organize the Grass March, said he grew up in a ranching family and has seen wildfires get worse and wildlife populations decline over the years since the BLM began reducing grazing.
He added that in addition to the support of Lander, Elko, Eureka and Humboldt County commissioners, the ranchers are also being backed by many of Nevada's Native Americans who do not want to see fires destroy their native plants.
In a May Bugle article, Furtado addressed the idea that grazing prevents wildfires. He said if enough cattle were turned out to reduce fire danger it would cause extensive damage to sensitive rangeland areas.
Excessively grazed rangeland, particularly during drought, results in the lack of resilience of the native plant communities over time and facilitates downward trends in the condition of the range which can bring in cheatgrass or other invasive annuals that have little resource value, increase the potential for wildfire and provide very little habitat for wildlife, Furtado said earlier.
Gerber said massive efforts to oust Furtado have been unsuccessful.
"The Grass March is critical in our opinion to open the eyes of the people in America and Congress to the plight of the ranchers in the Battle Mountain area, the Native Americans and the miners," he said. "We say regulation without representation is tyranny. (Furtado) is the sole decider of the economy in Lander County."
Tomera said the portion of the allotment that was closed, 92,000 acres, was based off of six acres of the riparian areas monitored by the BLM and that the Tomeras offered to fence the area off but were told they would not be able to do so.
However, Evenson said the riparian resources at risk in the Argenta Allotment include 42 miles of perennial stream, 329 miles of intermittent/ephemeral stream, which are streams that only run during certain times of the year, and 43 springs. These are all identified in the U.S. Geological Survey's National Hydrography Dataset, Version 210, which was released May 7.
"Although riparian habitat located on public lands in the nine use areas represents a minority of the total acres in these areas, the degradation or loss of this habitat would have a disproportionately negative impact on meeting riparian wetland rangeland health standards, in other words, providing for future grazing, as well as providing critical habitat for wildlife," Evenson said.
The decision to close part of the allotment was also based on the area being in the third year of a severe drought and that the cattle of three grazing permittees (the Chiara Ranch, Tomera Ranches and Henry Filippini, Jr.) had met or exceeded drought response triggers on nine of the 20 use areas in the Argenta Allotment, he added.
"According to the terms of their grazing agreements, the permittees are required to move their livestock off those nine use areas," he said. "There are 11 other use areas where drought response triggers have not been met and where forage is still available within the Argenta Allotment."
The triggers of a four-inch stubble height for key grasses were exceeded in numerous riparian areas, Evenson said, but Tomera denied the areas were excessively grazed.
Bob Schweigert, a range consultant, who owns Intermountain Range Consultants in Winnemucca, and who was hired by the Tomera Ranches and Hank Filippini, Jr., to monitor the Argenta Allotment, agreed with Tomera.
"As a scientist, I can tell you it's complete hogwash what the BLM's doing to these folks," he said.
According to data released Sept. 25 by PEER, Furtado was more than justified in removing cattle from the drought-stricken public rangeland.
In an article on the organization's website, Kirsten Stade refers to the ranchers/protesters as "drought deniers." She pointed out that much of Furtado's Battle Mountain District has been among the hardest hit by drought in Nevada.
"If we are to believe the ranchers, an extreme, multi-year, region-wide drought has magically spared only their allotments," she said.
Katie Fite, with the Western Watersheds Project, said the Argenta Allotment ranchers have long enjoyed the privilege of grazing large herds of cattle for nearly free on public lands and are now abusing that privilege.
"They are also costing taxpayers large sums in their efforts to thwart reasonable protections for public lands," she added. "Here in Argenta, the cows are trampling the watersheds, killing the potential for future perennial flows in crucial sage grouse brood rearing habitats by causing extreme impacts during drought and increasing flammable weeds and soil erosion through weakening native plant cover."
Tomera said 56 percent of the Argenta Allotment, which consists of 331,000 acres, is privately owned and that some of those privately owned areas have been closed off to grazing by the BLM. He added that the public/private portions are checker-boarded.
Evenson said the private areas have been temporarily closed by the BLM because a use area is managed as one land unit due to the checkerboard pattern.
Tomera also said that since the BLM's July 23 decision to close portions of the Argenta Allotment, his crews have been working to get their cows off the non-use portions but on Sept. 10, the BLM issued them a willful trespassing violation for $270 for 14 cows that were still left on that part of the range. He added that the BLM charged them an approximately $2,600 administrative fee.
However, according to Evenson, the BLM documented 153 cattle with the Tomera's brand grazing in the temporarily closed areas and the agency was required to issue an unauthorized use notice.
Contact Heather Hill at h.hill@winnemuccapublishing.net.
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