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Pomeroy rancher, Army Corps of Engineers agree to settlement of land dispute on Snake River

Rancher Walter “Sonny” Riley sits atop his horse Oly on Feb. 8, 2018, on his ranch near Central Ferry, Washington. Riley’s ranch reached an agreement with the federal government, signed by a U.S. District Court judge last week, that settled a decadelong dispute over grazing lands held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (TYLER TJOMSLAND/The Spokesman-Review)
Rancher Walter “Sonny” Riley sits atop his horse Oly on Feb. 8, 2018, on his ranch near Central Ferry, Washington. Riley’s ranch reached an agreement with the federal government, signed by a U.S. District Court judge last week, that settled a decadelong dispute over grazing lands held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (TYLER TJOMSLAND/The Spokesman-Review)Buy a print of this photo
By Kip Hill kiphillreporter@gmail.com

A Pomeroy, Washington, cattle rancher and the federal government have come to an agreement on a decadelong dispute over a 30-acre sliver of property along the bank of the Snake River that prompted a formal legal complaint from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The agreement, signed by a U.S. District Court judge on Dec. 21, prohibits Riley’s River Ranch from allowing its cattle to graze on federal land that was part of a sale in the 1960s to provide wildlife refuge and offset land lost as part of the lower Snake River dams. In return, Walter “Sonny” Riley and his business, headquartered in Pomeroy, will be transferred a plot of about a third of an acre under a building they constructed on contested land.

The agreement will settle a federal lawsuit filed in January 2018 against the Rileys. That lawsuit alleged the family was trespassing on federal land by allowing its cattle to graze and calve in the winter, leaving behind fence posts, wire, hay bales, a “large animal carcass pit” and manure piles. The family countered that surveys conducted by the federal government were inaccurate, that the land was not used as a feedlot and that a home built on the property was laid out before a 1965 sale of land to the federal government.

“If they’d come in and fence that … it would be over,” Walter Riley told The Spokesman-Review in February 2018. “But I’m not going to roll over. I guess we are going to court.”

The attorney for the Riley family, Toni Meachem, declined comment on the settlement in an email Tuesday.

After the lawsuit was filed, the parties quickly moved to stay the proceedings and negotiate a resolution, according to court records. Last week, U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington Vanessa Waldref – who was assigned to the case as an assistant U.S. attorney for the office in January 2018 – praised the resolution in a statement.

“This settlement agreement enables the Corps to fulfill its duty to maintain and protect these public lands and the environment as a whole,” Waldref said.

Neither party admitted fault as part of the agreement. The federal government must transfer the land and the Rileys must move their property off the federal land by the end of next year, according to the terms of the agreement.