U.S. judge to limit grazing on conservation land

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By GENE JOHNSON / The Associated Press

SEATTLE — A federal judge said Thursday he intends to limit how much private conservation land the Bush administration opens to hay production and cattle grazing, after environmentalists cried foul.

In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that in response to rising grain and food prices, it would allow farmers and ranchers nationwide to make hay or graze their cattle on 24 million acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, a $2 billion-a-year federal program which pays farmers not to plant crops in order to return fields to native vegetation.

The National Wildlife Foundation and its Washington, Indiana, South Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana and Kansas chapters sued, saying the agency didn’t properly consider the environmental impact of allowing grazing and haying on the conservation land, especially the effect on grassland birds. Although the grazing and haying would only be allowed from this month through early November, the damage to wintering areas and habitat for the birds, as well as water quality, could last for years, they argued.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour temporarily blocked the agency’s decision last week. During a hearing Thursday, he extended his temporary restraining order until next Tuesday, calling the USDA’s cursory environmental review in support of its decision a “joke.’’

But the judge also said he appreciates the plight of farmers and ranchers. He said next week he plans to issue an injunction limiting how much of the conservation land can be opened to haying and grazing, and he asked lawyers for both sides to help craft an urgent compromise.

The Nebraska Cattlemen organization is among those fighting the injunction so its members can access the haying and grazing program.

Established in the 1985 federal farm bill, the Conservation Reserve Program is the nation’s largest conservation program covering private lands. About 760,000 farmers have enrolled 34 million acres in the program; the government pays them rent for the land and provides financial assistance for conservation efforts.

Although 24 million acres were opened, the USDA expects that ranchers would seek to hay or graze only about 2.5 million acres. Coughenour suggested he might allow that much.

While the National Wildlife Foundation had demonstrated a strong likelihood that it would win its claim that the USDA violated the National Environmental Policy Act, Coughenour wrote in an order Thursday, the court must still consider the economic hardship of the farmers and the public, such as from rising food prices.

“There are substantial competing hardships, whose impact could be devastating to citizens who trusted that their government was acting legally ... as well as to the nation and the world economy at large, if the court issues the injunction that plaintiffs urge, which would suspend all haying and grazing ... until defendants have completed an environmental assessment,’’ Coughenour wrote.

The case drew friend-of-the-court briefs and affidavits from ranchers and agriculture officials around the country. Some ranchers wrote that they had already moved their cattle onto the conservation land — Bill O’Brien, an Amarillo, Texas, cattle producer, said he spent $50,000 on fencing and drilling wells for the cattle — when the judge halted the program.

Tom and Kim Hendrickson, who have a 450 cow-calf pair operation in Asotin County, Wash., said that they spent $40,000 on haying equipment because they thought they would be able to hay some conservation land this summer. What’s more, they said, they didn’t order hay from their usual producer, and it’s prohibitively expensive to get it elsewhere now.

Hay prices have increased from $75 to $100 three years ago to as much as $200 a ton.

A USDA official wrote in a court affidavit that rising feed prices are prompting some ranchers to kill their breeding herds, which will in turn limit supply and drive up food prices for consumers.

Ron Nordby, a cattle producer from Mansfield, in central Washington, said he and his son, Larry, had planned to use 1,000 of the 4,000 acres they have in the conservation program to begin weaning their 500 calves next week.

“We’ll have to do something — either buy some feed or figure out something,’’ he said after Thursday’s court hearing. “The freight rate’s pretty high. We used to just load cattle and move ‘em, but now we have to think about it.’’

Thomas France, a National Wildlife Federation attorney based in Missoula, Mont., said in court that the organization recognizes the difficulties posed by rising food and commodity prices, but that the USDA could have considered alternatives to opening 24 million acres to haying and grazing, such as placing regional or state caps on how much land could be opened, or concentrating the activity away from wetlands, where there would be less impact on birds and water quality.

“We’re very pleased the court has recognized that the USDA acted illegally,’’ France said after the hearing. “It’s telling the USDA to do what it should have done in the first instance, which is to sit down and talk to people.’’