In a letter to the Washington Department of Ecology and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins expressed concerns about penalties and revoked grazing leases for ranchers Wade and Teresa King.
In 2023, the ranch was fined more than $250,000 after the Department of Ecology claimed the family illegally excavated wetlands. The Department of Natural Resources later canceled the ranch’s grazing leases.
“The state is claiming farm ponds are wetlands and is attempting to bring the hammer down on a ranch simply for doing what they have always done: steward their land and livestock,” Rollins wrote. “This war on agriculture must stop.”
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