WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Judge Rules that BLM Must Reconsider Herbicide Project near Roswell

WildEarth Guardians Applauds Ruling, Urges Precaution in Use of Toxins
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM - June 28. Judge Robert G. Holt, an administrative law judge within the U.S. Department of Interior, ruled last week that a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) environmental assessment (EA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by only considering herbicides for controlling brush. Judge Holt found that the BLM’s assessment for aerial herbicide application on 2,700 acres of the Hondo Allotment (near the Rio Hondo outside of Roswell, New Mexico) considered too narrow a range of alternatives for brush management and too narrowly defined the scope of and remedy for the issue.

BLM is now required to revise its EA for the project, and Judge Holt recommended that the agency prepare a cost-benefit analysis for the vegetation control, address cumulative impacts of the project, and consider the impacts of herbicides on endangered species, including the Bald Eagle.

“We are pleased by this ruling and hope it sends a message to the agency that it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to use of herbicides,” stated Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians. “This was the lesson of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and we will continue to hold BLM accountable to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, in order to protect the environment and the public from toxic herbicides.”

Judge Holt wrote in his decision that “BLM completely skipped any analysis of which method described in the program EIS to use and went straight to the conclusion that it should use a specific chemical,” and he cited case law that BLM’s errors in the Hondo project EA would allow it to “slip past the structures of NEPA.” Judge Holt ruled that BLM cannot rely on previous programmatic analysis on herbicides and grazing but must conduct site-specific analysis for the 2,700-acre project area and must consider other forms of vegetative management in addition to herbicides, such as mechanical, burning, manual, and biological control.

Dr. Walter G. Whitford, Senior Research Ecologist Emeritus at the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range of New Mexico State University submitted an extensive declaration for WildEarth Guardians in which he described how “it is extremely unlikely that killing shrubs will result in an increase in grass cover and it is likely that herbicide treatment will lead to increased erosion and rangeland degradation.” He also noted that the project would probably not pass a cost-benefit analysis or benefit either wildlife or livestock.

WildEarth Guardians argued that the Hondo project did not make ecological or environmental sense. The public land of the Rio Hondo Allotment is under a 10-year grazing permit, for which the BLM was paid $1.79 per AUM in 2005. With approximately 2400 cattle grazing this area along with 720 sheep in 2005, the yearly revenue was approximately $5,600. The estimated cost of the tebuthiuron application was over $82,000. The group is also concerned that livestock grazing is causing brush encroachment on the Rio Hondo Allotment, yet the BLM continues to authorize livestock grazing on the allotment.

WildEarth Guardians was represented in this case by James Jay Tutchton of theEnvironmental Law Clinic at the University of Denver.

WildEarth Guardians is a regional conservation group dedicated to preserving and restoring wildlands and wildlife in the American Southwest. Contact Nicole Rosmarino for a copy of Judge Holt’s June 21 ruling via email: nrosmarino@fguardians.org or phone: 303-573-4898.

Additional contact: Walter G. Whitford, Ph.D. ● (505) 521-1358