Group to sue if grazing allowed

YAKIMA – An environmental group announced plans Wednesday to sue Washington state if it approves a proposal to allow cattle grazing on portions of central Washington’s Whisky Dick Wildlife Area, a parcel of rural sagebrush situated between the state’s two remaining sage grouse populations.

The Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project contends the state must first produce an environmental impact statement before allowing 160 cattle to forage on two pastures in the Whisky Dick area, about 110 miles east of Seattle. The two pastures proposed as grazing land comprise 8,418 acres of the 28,549-acre wildlife area, a rolling series of ridges and canyons above the mid-Columbia River.

“Our major concerns are they’re not properly analyzing what they’re doing, and that this project would seriously jeopardize one of the last undisturbed sage-steppe habitats in central Washington,” said Miles Johnson of Western Watersheds in Hailey, Idaho.

Cattle grazing on public lands has been an issue in parts of the West for decades. Western Watersheds has repeatedly raised questions about the proposed grazing on Whisky Dick, as well as the Asotin Wildlife Area in Washington’s southeast corner.

The group contends the grazing violates the Endangered Species Act by harming the rare shrub-steppe ecosystem and adjacent streams that support a number of endangered and declining species, including sage grouse, loggerhead shrike, Chinook salmon and bull trout.

Whisky Dick, in particular, sits between the state’s two remaining sage grouse populations, and sightings have occurred in the area. Sage grouse are listed as a threatened species by the state.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife purchased 17,027 acres in the Whiskey Dick area from private landowners in 1966 to expand winter range for deer and elk herds and to improve upland game bird habitat. The remaining acreage is owned by the Washington Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Under the proposal, grazing would occur for 30 days this spring.

Fish and Wildlife officials say the grazing management plan is part of a larger process to improve land management in the area with the cooperation of local landowners, conservation and environmental groups and others.

Moderate grazing by livestock removes older, rank grass and increases the availability of more nutritious spring or fall regrowth for elk, thereby reducing chances elk will forage on farmland, according to Fish and Wildlife.

The area in question has not been grazed by livestock for 10 years.

“What we’re trying to do is make these areas more attractive for elk that have been causing predation problems in the northeast corner of the Kittitas Valley,” said Edd Bracken, a Fish and Wildlife biologist in Ellensburg. “A lot of the key bunch grass that elk rely on, when it isn’t grazed or burned, it tends to build up and lower in production.”

In the meantime, Bracken said the proposed grazing permit is on hold.

Jack Field, executive director of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association, expressed frustration with Western Watershed’s intent to sue.

“We have people who don’t even live in the state coming in the ninth inning to throw a curveball, so to speak,” he said. On the other hand, the process has the weight of years of work to support it.

“This is years and years of stakeholder input and work from all sides to come to a final management plan,” Field said.