Feds Don’t Seem To Know Much
About Secret Deal With Ecos

WASHINGTON — Congress is giving some support to ranchers who complain they had no say in an out-of-court settlement barring cattle from stream-side areas in dozens of U.S. Forest Service grazing allotments in New Mexico and Arizona.

House members said last week they would continue investigating whether ranchers were unfairly excluded from negotiations between the government and environmental activists.

Government officials appeared before the House Resource Committee, but were either unable or unwilling to answer some of the most significant questions posed to them.

Rep. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., while not a member of the Resources Committee, led the call for the hearings after receiving complaints from ranchers in his district.

"The Forest Service should have included all parties affected by the agreements, particularly those whose livelihood is threatened by such decisions," he said.

The agreement calls for the removal of cattle from streams on 57 forest allotments in the two states. Environmental activists contend that allowing cattle to graze along the waterways is hurting supposedly "threatened" or "endangered" species of fish and birds.

Ranchers testified they had no say in the critical issue because settlement negotiations between the Forest Service and environmental groups already were far along before they were able to get involved.

Howard Hutchinson of the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties, a group that represents county government concerns, testified that the counties and ranchers in April obtained the right to participate in closed-door talks aimed at settling the dispute, but only six days before an out-of-court settlement was reached.

A lawsuit brought by the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and the Forest Guardians claiming violations of the Endangered Species Act was slated for a hearing six days after settlement.

Jimmy Bason of the New Mexico Cattlegrowers Association said environmental groups use the legal process to force changes in environmental policy on public lands that short-circuit requirements for public hearings. Such hearings, he said, would give other public-land users an opportunity to discuss land-use changes.

"They use the legal system as an end run around public hearings required when you change policy on public land," he said after the hearing.

But Robert Wiygul, an attorney for the Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund, claimed no discussions on a settlement were held until "a week or 10 days" prior to settlement of the case.

He said ranchers were invited to participate, and some did participate in an early conference call to discuss settlement. But he said ranchers chose not to participate.

In an effort to get at the truth, the committee called on several government agents, but to little avail.

Peter Coppelman, deputy assistant attorney general for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, said he was unsure when negotiations between the Forest Service, the Justice Department and two environmental groups began.

"I was not directly present in the negotiations. I was not the attorney on the case, and I couldn't tell you when exact negotiations began," Coppelman said in response to a question by Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.

Hayworth called for the trial attorney's notes to be submitted to the committee for examination after several other Forest Service and Justice Department officials also claimed they could not say for certain when negotiations began.

Ranchers plan to deliver a peaceful but poignant message this week to the U.S. Forest Service on their anger over the secretly negotiated plan.

The ranchers plan to picket Thursday at the Forest Service headquarters in Silver City, N.M., in protest of the agreement between the federal agency and two environmental activist groups.

"It will be a peaceful protest," said Larry Patton, one of the organizers. "We intend to break no rules."

Catron County residents have scheduled a similar rally Monday in Reserve.

In addition to its secrecy, ranchers also say the pact is illegal.

"It is a phony agreement that violates the law," Patton said. "To amend an operating plan on an allotment, you have to go through the (National Environmental Policy Act) process."

Steve Libby, an official of the Gila National Forest, disagreed.

"There are provisions in the (grazing) permit that recognize the district ranger's authority to require certain actions to protect resources," Libby claimed. "This is just part of an annual adjustment to the plan of operations."

Libby also said the Forest Service will help pay for fences and water systems to keep cattle away from streams on the allotments, but he admitted that much of the cost for installation and maintenance would be borne by ranchers, even though they had no part in the agreement.

Pending legislation in the U.S. House and Senate calls for a $400,000 appropriation to the Forest Service to finance improvements required by the agreement. It would not compensate stockmen for the loss of the grazing land, nor is it at all clear how much it would cover of the other costs to be imposed on them.