Links   E-mail             Print            Advertisement

An Idaho-based conservation group has expanded its lawsuit over cattle grazing on the Whisky Dick Wildlife Area to include the recently purchased Skookumchuck abutting it to the west.

Western Watersheds Project's suit accuses the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife of failing to do sufficient environmental analysis prior to turning out a Kittitas cattle-man's cattle onto Skookumchuck property purchased just last year by the wildlife department.

That Skookumchuck land, which officially became part of the Quilomene Wildlife Area to the north, abuts Whisky Dick to the west. Upon its purchase last year, state wildlife director Jeff Koenings said the Skookumchuck would "be preserved as critical habitat."

Its pastures "have been hammered by grazing for over a century," says former state wildlife commissioner Bob Tuck of Selah. "There are areas that are totally obliterated ... riparian areas are literally gone. Clearly these areas are in desperate need of restoration."

But this spring the wildlife department issued a temporary permit to a Kittitas rancher, Russ Stingley, allowing him roughly a two-month window through June to graze cattle on 18,500 acres of the Skookumchuck.

Western Watersheds Project had previously sued over the department's initial plan to graze two pastures of the Whisky Dick, and this week amended the suit to include the Skookumchuck.

The state's contention: Because the Skookumchuck pastures in question have been grazed in the last 10 years, they're exempt from the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) analysis that would normally be required. But Western Watersheds contends that because most of that grazing had been on private land, not under permit on state land, the wildlife department is in violation of SEPA.

"It's just such an important issue as to whether these grazing permits are subject to review under SEPA. We're taking the long view; we want the court to make a careful determination of it," said Kristin Ruether, an attorney representing Western Watersheds. "It's apparent the state wants to expand this type of activity."

Just as the SEPA question may come down to dueling lawyers, grazing as a wildlife habitat tool comes down to dueling science. Its proponents and its opponents each point to reams of studies supporting their respective cases.

Tip Hudson, a rangelands specialist with Washington State University Extension, said Stingley's grazing practices are nothing like the overgrazing done prior to modern rangeland science. Nor, he said, would any future grazing done as part of a coordinated management plan involving public and private land-use interests in Kittitas and Yakima counties.

"Every participant is committed to adaptive management," Hudson said.

"We take the science that says cattle are going to damage things, and we make the determination not to do it the way grazing was done in that study. And we take the science that says cattle hasn't damaged it but has improved the resource, and put that to use. You try to adjust your plan to take advantage of whatever worked, and avoid what didn't.

"The monitoring is the key."