Just as surely as the summer follows the spring, environmental litigation groups launch lawsuits after grazing is reintroduced to an area.
On Friday, May 13, the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and WildEarth Guardians announced they were suing the BLM and others for reinstating four federal grazing permits to the Hammond family of Oregon. The groups allege that the reinstatement of the permits violates numerous laws, was “arbitrary and capricious,” and will damage important habitat. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Portland, OR.
“Secretary [Ryan] Zinke hijacked the public process for political reasons and ordered the local land managers to go against their own judgment and renew the grazing permit for public land permittees who had violated federal regulations,” wrote Erik Molvar, executive director of WWP, in the plaintiffs’ shared announcement of the suit. This later detail was in reference to Dwight and Steven Hammonds’ 2012 arson convictions.
Briefly, the 2012 arson convictions related to two controlled burns Dwight and Steven Hammond began on their property in 2001 and 2006. In both cases, the fires got out of control and burned onto their abutting federal permit ground. Between the two fires, a total of 140 acres of federal land were burned.
The two Hammonds were sentenced under an antiterrorism law that required a minimum sentence of five years in prison. The first judge ruled that to be too harsh and gave them a shorter time, which they served. The sentencing was appealed, and a later judge ruled they must return to prison for the full minimum five years. They returned to prison at the beginning of 2016.
[inline_image file=”b6afa3fc1ee98ce07651e9a89eaf991c.jpg” caption=”Dwight (left) and Steven (right) Hammond have been pardoned by President Donald Trump after serving a combined seven years in prison. The pair were charged under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and found guilty in 2012. Though the convictions came with mandatory minimum sentences of five years in prison, they received shorter sentences because the required five years would “shock the conscience,” according to the original judge. The pair were sent back to prison in 2016 after the government appealed the original sentence. They returned home on July 11.”]
On July 10, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned the pair before their sentence was complete. Following the pardon, then-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke remanded the BLM to renew four of the Hammonds’ federal grazing permits through 2024 as his final act in office on Jan. 2, 2019.
In his decision, Zinke acknowledged that Trump’s pardon did not “blot out guilt.” However, he said that “I find that the pardons constitute unique and important changed circumstances since the BLM made its decision,” referring to the agency’s 2014 refusal to renew the Hammonds grazing permit.
The plaintiff groups in the current lawsuit do not share that perspective. Instead, they claim the reinstatement of the Hammonds’ permits violated numerous points in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They additionally claim that allowing cattle on the allotments will further damage the habitat and spread invasive cheatgrass that is already present.
“The Hammond grazing allotments encompass high-value sagebrush habitats essential to greater sage-grouse and stream segments important to redband trout,” read the complaint document.
“Resumption of grazing on these allotments after five years of rest will irreparably harm these areas by degrading sage-grouse habitat, increasing invasive weeds, and increasing the likelihood of destructive fire, both through grazing and given the Hammonds’ longstanding pattern of fire-setting to increase forage for their cattle.”
The plaintiffs requested the court “enjoins and vacates” Zinke’s decision, prevent the Hammonds’ cattle to be turned out this summer, and prevent the permits from being renewed until a NEPA assessment is completed, among other things.
Alan Schroeder, the Hammonds’ lawyer, previously told WLJ in January 2019 that legal challenges to the permit renewal could prove difficult, particularly in establishing standing to sue. Efforts to reach Schroeder for this story were unsuccessful. — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
