Two sides of grazing debate settle

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — An out-of-court settlement has ended several years of legal jousting between state wildlife officials and an Idaho-based conservation group over cattle grazing on state wildlife lands in eastern Kittitas County.

Under the agreement between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Western Watersheds Project, the WDFW will suspend all commercial livestock grazing on the eastern half of the Whisky Dick/Quilomene Wildlife Area. Western Watersheds, meanwhile, promises not to file anymore lawsuits over the state’s grazing practices on the wildlife area’s western side.

Each side seemed to consider the agreement both a victory and a disappointment.

“In any settlement, you give up some of what you want, and we would have preferred to see the entire area under this closure,” said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project.

“However, the benefits for wildlife and fisheries will become apparent and will inform future decisions of the WDFW,” Marvel added, “as they will readily see the benefits of not having livestock on wildlife lands.”

The state, meanwhile, will be able to continue its role in the Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) plan — which grew out of the Kittitas County-based Big Game Management Roundtable — without fear of being dragged into Thurston County Superior Court yet again over its grazing practices on wildlife lands.

“In exchange, they’ve agreed not to bring any more lawsuits regarding the western pastures. So that was the trade,” said Jennifer Quan, state lands manager for the wildlife department. “Now we can go ahead and develop a (grazing) rotation permit there that includes the (Puget Sound Energy-owned Wild Horse) Wind Farm.

“Our limitations right now (are) still in the infrastructure development. In order for us to graze there, per the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) and how we’ve set out grazing there, we still need to put boundary fences for the wildlife area on the north, pasture fences and then the water/spring developments need to occur. That’s all so we can implement the low-impact regime we’re looking for.”

The pastures where livestock grazing will continue include Lower and Upper Park Creek, Whisky Jim, Vantage Highway, Wild Horse Crossing and Wild Horse North and South, as well as the PSE Litigation Parcel. Pastures covered by the 20-year grazing moratorium include Skookumchuck and Upper Skookumchuck, East and West Whisky Dick, Rocky Coulee and Lone Star.

This month’s agreement came one year, almost to the date, since the latter’s most recent lawsuit challenging the WDFW’s decision to approve its 2009 EIS — a decision that had itself come only months after yet another legal battle, a 2007 lawsuit that led to a January 2009 Superior Court ruling that the WDFW’s Whisky Dick/Quilomene grazing had violated the State Environmental Protection Act process.

Steve Herman, a Thurston County resident who had filed that 2007 suit on behalf of Western Watersheds, applauded this month’s agreement.

“This is huge,” Herman said. “I’m really, really excited. This protects about 55 square miles, including our beloved Whisky Dick, from grazing for the next 20 years.”