RENO, Nev. (AP) — Advocates for wild horses are accusing federal land managers of illegally approving plans for the largest U.S. holding facility outside of Winnemucca for thousands of mustangs captured on public rangeland in 10 Western states.
Friends of Animals claimed in a lawsuit filed Aug. 15 that up to 4,000 horses could be held for months or years at a time in dusty, pens without shade or wind-breaks in Nevada’s high desert.
At a cost of millions of dollars annually to U.S. taxpayers, the lawsuit says it’s part of the government’s “misguided” effort to appease residents by accelerating roundups of destructive mustangs competing with livestock for public forage across much of the drought-stricken West.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. district court in Reno says the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management broke multiple environmental and animal protection laws when it “rushed through the approval process without considering the impacts of the unprecedented facility on wild horses and burros or the local community.’’
Interior Department spokesman Tyler Cherry said in an email that neither the department nor the bureau had any comment.
The BLM said in announcing solicitations for bids for the corral in late 2020 that more space was needed to facilitate roundups of what it says is an overpopulation of wild horse herds causing ecological damage to the range.
The bureau concluded a full-blown, year-long environmental impact review wasn’t necessary for JS Livestock Inc.’s holding pens on 100 acres of private land near Paradise, north of Winnemucca.
Humboldt County Commission Chair and National Wild Horse & Burro Task Force Resource Advisor/Manager, Jim French, said in a phone call that he would like to see a facility in Humboldt County, but the site chosen by the BLM raises many concerns for him. With Little Humboldt running by one side, Cottonwood Creek running by the other side, and Martin Creek running down to the east of the property, French said he has seen the proposed site flooded three times in the duration of his 30-year career as a Wildlife Biologist for Humboldt County.
“Ultimately, I don’t have a problem with some sort of a holding facility in Northern Nevada or Humboldt County, I just want to make sure it’s in a location that we don’t end up with a train wreck later on with another water event that we already know is going to occur,” explained French.
Jennifer Best, director of Friends of Animals Wildlife Law Program, said agency officials who approved the project in November failed to adequately respond to concerns raised about disease transmission, animal waste, disposal of dead animals, groundwater contamination and “air quality in terms of odor and dust.’’
French raised similar concerns in regards to mortality and how the BLM and JS Livestock plan to deal with the removal of dead animals.
“If you look at an average year with a holding facility—regardless of where they have it and the shape that the horses are in when they get them— you can have up to ten percent of mortality with horses,” said French, and explained that the disposal of hundreds of dead horses is likely going to fall on the Humboldt County Landfill.
The less-rigorous environmental assessment the agency completed improperly relies on state permits and other documents in an attempt to satisfy the reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the lawsuit said.
Among other things, the suit says the agency will require JS Livestock to clean the 40 pens that can hold up to 100 cattle as few as two times a year. Every six months, 100 horses will produce 465 tons of waste in a 750-square-foot pen and 4,000 animals would produce 18,000 tons, it claims.
“Number one, [the proposed site] is not in the best interest of the horses. Secondly, because it is in a floodplain, there is a high risk of nitrate, phosphorus, and colloidal solid infiltration into the groundwater in that location because of the stacked manure,” said French.
The suit says the bureau gave short shrift to numerous potential impacts, including noise the agency’s review concluded wouldn’t significantly differ from the existing land use — an alfalfa field.
“BLM did not explain how a facility with 4,000 wild horses and burros will have the same level of noise as alfalfa,” it said.
According to the complaint, one Friends of Animals members is a real estate agent and has two homes in Humboldt County; one in Paradise Valley and one in Winnemucca. “He is concerned about the pollution, noise, and odor that the Winnemucca ORC will cause if it is allowed to move forward,” the complain states.
“I believe that, at the bare minimum, we should request that short and long-term planning be incorporated with that location that will minimize the risks to the horses and to the environment,” French explained.
JS Livestock didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Jennifer Erickson, a woman listed as a company officer, declined immediate comment when reached by phone.
French reported that after he contacted BLM’s project manager, Allan Shepherd, he wrote off French’s concerns as “anecdotal information.”
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and its Public Lands Council are among those who back the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce the overpopulation of wild horses on federal lands.
“This isn’t the first time a litigious activist group has thrown themselves in the way of meaningful progress on this crisis, and it won’t be the last,” said Sigrid Johannes, an associate director of the groups.
“Off-range corrals are a legitimate — and badly needed — tool in the toolbox for managing critically overpopulated’’ areas, she said in an email.
Nevada is home to about half the 86,000 horses roaming federal lands in 10 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
The bureau announced in January it planned to permanently remove 19,000 wild horses and burros in 2022, the most ever in a single year.
As of last month, more than 58,000 wild horses and burros were being housed in holding pens and off-range pastures at a cost to taxpayers of $50 million annually, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said the 2022 roundup schedule relied on the opening of the holding facility in Winnemucca. The largest holding facility currently in operation at Palomino Valley just north of Reno has a capacity of 1,800.
Staff writer Julia Maestrejuan contributed to this report.