A federal judge dismissed a suit by environmental groups challenging grazing in the Fremont-Winema National Forest due to its effects on the Oregon spotted frog.
The Concerned Friends of the Winema and four other environmental groups filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon Medford Division, arguing the grazing decision by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) was arbitrary and capricious and in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The groups allege USFS had not “carefully considered and disclosed the environmental effects of its decisions” as required by NEPA.
The Antelope grazing allotment in the Fremont-Winema National Forest encompasses approximately 169,599 acres, with the Jack Creek running through two pastures—the Chemult pasture and the North Sheep pasture. Jack Creek is the primary habitat for the Oregon spotted frog.
The grazing plan approved by USFS expanded the acreage by an additional 21,433 acres to allow for a greater disbursement of cattle and a lighter impact on the frog’s habitat. The expansion also permitted deferred rotation between the Chemult and North Sheep pastures to allow for the regular rest of those areas.
Judge Michael McShane ruled, “The administrative record contains sufficient support for the (USFS) to rationally predict that better dispersal, and therefore decreased impacts, will occur under the new grazing management plan as compared to status quo grazing.” McShane said USFS took measures to address the tendency of cattle to concentrate in riparian areas by focusing on issues brought by the agency’s experts.
McShane added that measures taken by USFS to protect the spotted frog—including spring protection with fencing, control of invasive species, habitat restoration, alternate water sources and modified grazing practices—are sufficient under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Oregon spotted frog was listed as threatened under the ESA in September 2014.
The environmental groups also challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and USFS’ biological opinion (BiOp) and the USFS’ final environmental impact statement (FEIS), arguing USFS “failed to take a hard look at the impacts of grazing by improperly dismissing alternatives and brushing aside effects of climate change and impacts to frogs.”
McShane ruled the FEIS complied with the National Forest Management Act, as USFS “adequately assessed the viability of Oregon spotted frog, sensitive plants, mollusks, and other sensitive species in the FEIS and expert botany report, ultimately finding that the new grazing framework would not impair these species’ viability.”
McShane continued that the environmental groups “failed to point to any study” that USFS should have used in the BiOp, and he was not “persuaded by plaintiff’s argument that the USFWS’s 2018 BiOp failed to consider climate change.”
In the ruling, McShane said USFWS took a “hard look” at the effects of climate change and how it interacts with grazing. McShane said the agency looked at past and future trends for temperature and precipitation. Additionally, it relied on independent and agency experts to study the conflicts between cattle and the frog, as they both occupy a small number of pools available when the Jack Creek becomes intermittent.
“The USFWS’s 2018 BiOp adequately addressed both survival and recovery of the spotted frog in the project area and was not ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,’” McShane wrote. —Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
