Washington Fish and Wildlife officials said Tuesday grazing will not occur on the Asotin Wildlife Area this year.
On Friday, a Thurston County Superior Court judge ruled the agency's 2009 grazing plan arbitrary and capricious. Judge Paula Casey said the department violated the state Administrative Procedures Act when it did not explain why the concerns of wildlife biologist from the department were not addressed in the plan.
Her ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the environmental group Western Watersheds Project and came as the department was finalizing its 2010 grazing plan for the Pintler Unit of the wildlife area. Cattle were to be turned out there April 15.
Steve Pozzanghera, director of the department's eastern region based in Spokane, said grazing will not occur in the area this year and the future of the pilot program will be evaluated. The department is still waiting for the judge's written order. Casey ruled from the bench on Friday.
"For 2010 we will have no pilot grazing activities in southeastern Washington," Pozzanghera said.
He said once the written order is available, the department will review it and decide if an appeal is warranted.
"We are still going to be looking at what this means from the perspective of wanting the pilot program to be successful and being able to have a research, science-based investigation on the ground, for use of cattle as a means of grazing vegetation and looking at vegetation response on public land," he said. "We want that to be fully evaluated. We would like the project to proceed in 2011."
Pozzanghera also said many of the negative comments from Fish and Wildlife Department employees were made regarding the 2006 and 2007 grazing plans that have since been addressed.
"The way the agency responded was to look at those concerns and then to direct a research investigation," he said.
In 2006 the department began a-three year pilot grazing program to determine of cattle could be used to manage vegetation and improve wildlife habitat. The program was extended for another three years in 2009 and range scientists and graduate students from Washington State University joined the program to evaluate if the program could achieve the desired conditions.
The Hailey, Idaho based Western Watersheds Project said grazing was harming wildlife habitat, spreading noxious weeds and causing erosion to seep into sensitive steelhead spawning streams.
Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project at Hailey said Friday he hoped the ruling would put an end to the grazing program.
"I hope this provides a strong tap on the shoulder of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to reconsider the unfortunate path it has chosen to allow free livestock grazing on wildlife areas."
Tom Hendrickson of Asotin was set to release 35 cow calf pairs on the Pintler Unit next week and has to find other pasture for the animals. But he was more disappointed the pilot project is dead in the water.
"I just think we need to prove to the environmentalists we can go in there and graze that and make the habitat better."
He said Pintler Creek has been fenced off for years and the cows get their water from improvements installed by the department that also benefits wildlife.
"The birds use it, the wildlife uses it but nobody can see that part of it."
Hendrickson said the grazing in the pilot program is free but it is labor intensive.
"They don't realize we are up there three or four times a week and moving cattle and doing this and that and the trips you make to Ellensburg for meetings."
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Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273.
