Comb Wash – Check It Out Before A Quarter of a Century of Recovery is Destroyed

The Comb Wash allotment and the adjacent Cottonwood allotment within what, at the time of this writing, is still within the Bear’s Ears National Monument features prominently within the annals of litigation against the abuses of livestock grazing on our public lands.

For decades after the passage of The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) the federal land management agencies resisted complying with the law. The first major case on this topic was the famous NRDC v. Morton in 1975

Defendants Rogers C.B. Morton and Curtis J. Berklund have a mandatory, non discretionary duty pursuant to § 102(2)[of NEPA] to prepare, publicly circulate, and consider environmental impact statements which satisfy the National Environmental Policy Act in all respects and which discuss in detail the environmental effects of the proposed livestock grazing, and alternatives thereto, in specific areas of the public lands which are or will be licensed for such use, subject to the timetable to be established pursuant to paragraphs 3 or 4 of this Order and in accordance with the Memorandum *842 Opinion accompanying this Judgment;

Fast forward a few years and BLM was still resisting compliance under NEPA of its grazing program. Enter a kick ass lawyer named Joe Feller. Joe’s cases and scholarship are legendary. I suggest:

• WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE BLM’S MANAGEMENT OF LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON THE PUBLIC LANDS?
• THE COMB WASH CASE: THE RULE OF LAW COMES TO THE PUBLIC RANGELANDS
• MULTIPLE USE GRAZING MANAGEMENT IN THE GRAND STAIRCASE ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT

_{Comb Ridge}

The case was brought by Joe as an appellant, and The National Wildlife Federation (NWF)and The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA)

Opposing the request to comply with the law was, of course, the BLM, joined by Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe¹ and the American and Utah branches of the Farm Bureau Federation.

After an 18 day hearing, the judge slammed the BLM, finding:

(1) BLM failed to comply with NEPA

(2) BLM violated FLPMA by “failing to make a reasoned and informed decision that the benefits of grazing the canyons outweigh the costs,” (Decision at 23

(3) BLM violated FLPMA by failing to make a reasoned and informed decision establishing stocking rates for the whole allotment;

(4) BLM violated the order in Feller v. BLM, supra, and applicable grazing regulations in engaging in “closed-door management” of the Comb Wash Allotment in issuing grazing authorizations without providing affected interests notice and the opportunity to comment on those authorizations, (Decision at 27); and

(5) BLM failed to conform to the forage utilization limits of the RMP.

Instead of complying with the law, the BLM, as is typical, appealed the decision along with the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe and the ag industry henchmen

The appellate tribunal agreed with the lower judge.

Contrary to the evidence and Mr. Scherick’s [the Field Office Manager at the time] belief, Mr. [Paul] Curtis [the range con] thought that the RMP had already considered the impacts of grazing on the allotment’s resources and determined that the allotment should be grazed, regardless of the recognized conflict with recreational uses and the need for adjustment confirmed by monitoring. He therefore felt it was not his responsibility to consider those impacts. Mr. Scherick’s reliance upon Mr. Curtis, who believed that the decision to graze had already been made and was still binding, does not constitute a rational basis for determining whether the canyons should be grazed.

Furthermore, Mr. Curtis, an expert in range management only, does not have the expertise necessary to understand all the impacts of grazing in the canyons. Yet, he testified that he relied solely upon the utilization data, the Proposed RMP/FEIS, and ocular observations to determine the specific terms under which grazing would be allowed. There is some question whether he also sought and relied upon advice from experts in archaeology and other fields, but he provided no documentation and little evidence of the context or content of any discussions with those experts.

It was a stunning and rare rebuke of the BLM’s blind allegiance to whatever bullsh*t that a range con fabricates.

What is important in this case, and what we affirm, is Judge Rampton’s finding that BLM violated FLPMA, because it failed to engage in any reasoned or informed decisionmaking process concerning grazing in the canyons in the
allotment. That process must show that BLM has balanced competing resource values to ensure that the public lands in the canyons are managed in the manner that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people.

This was a major step pushing back against the BLM’s standard approach that “multiple use” equates with multiple abuse.

Now, a quarter of a century later, the tribe, or more likely a single member who is in line to make money from grazing his livestock on the allotments, is pushing the BLM to allow him to turn out livestock.

The BLM has required the tribe to bring the range ‘improvements’ up to standard after a quarter of a century of neglect but it appears they will have completed that process before spring of 2025.

This past spring, after completing some data collection on the severely degraded Indian Creek allotment permitted to The Nature Conservancy I went through the Comb Wash allotment because I had seen documents in recent FOIA’s that the tribe was pushing to put its livestock back on Comb Wash.

Of course, the century of abuse had not been recovered from but it was astounding. Most of the allotment was covered in mid seral biological soil crust, even on the flats and near water, which is never seen on grazed allotments.

The Indian ricegrass had root crowns of a foot in diameter with massive seed production, rarely seen in grazed allotments.

The galetta grass, while an increaser species under grazing was nearly two feet tall instead of the usual 4″ in grazed allotments.

It was amazing to see the recovery, but heartrending that this rare experiment in post-livestock recovery is about to be destroyed by the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.

I have tried multiple times to contact the Bear’s Ears Intertribal Coalition to set up a tour of the allotment and have a discussion whether the Coalition supports destroying this precious experiment in recovery but all those attempts have been ignored.

So I am urging people to go see Comb Wash before the quarter of a century of recovery gets destroyed.

While public opinion matters little to the BLM, feel free to email :

The Field Office Manager Jacob Palma jepalma@blm.gov

The Assistant Field Office Manager Tina Marian tmarian@blm.gov

The Utah Deputy State Director Matt Preston mpreston@blm.gov

And let them know you don’t want to see the recovery destroyed.