Malheur County Federal Land Legislation

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has introduced the proposed “ Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act” (S.2828; 116th Congress). Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has cosponsored it. As introduced, the legislation is an existential threat to public lands.

In General

For details, see my two Public Lands Blog post:

• L’Affaire Malheur, Part 1: The Proposed Legislation

• L’Affaire Malheur, Part 2: Backstory and Analysis

Specifically

For specific analyses of problematic provisions of the legislation, see my memoranda to interested parties:

• Grandfathering Livestock Grazing in a Proposed Wild and Scenic River

• Further Expanding of the Grazing Loophole in The Wilderness Act (The Wyden Wilderness Weakenings): The Proposed Malheur Community Empowerment Act (S.2828)

Concerns of Others

• Sierra Club letter to Senator Wyden (with the attached concerns of its Grazing Team and Wildlands Team.

• Great Old Broads for Wilderness letter to Senator Wyden.

Cheatgrass and Livestock Grazing

Most ranchers believe that the invasion of alien cheatgrass into native ecosystems not only harms the ability of their livestock to graze what are or where native bunchgrass-dominated sites, but that the solution to halt and reverse the spread of the nonnative species is more livestock grazing.

It is very difficult to get someone to understand something when their wages, profits, lifestyle, sex life and/or election depend upon them not understanding that something.

There is belief and then there is science. Here is a review of the scientific literature in re the spread of cheatgrass and in particular the role of domestic livestock in causing and aiding that spread. The review was not written by me, but rather by a highly qualified expert who must, for anonymous reasons, remain anonymous.

Oil and Gas Leases

According to the Center for Western Priorities, 172,759 acres of BLM land has been leased, all in Malheur County. Of that amount, 149,333 acres were leased for $2/acre. See the map below, which I clipped for a CWP webpage. The lease map doesn’t correlate well with the BLM recreation map that shows surface ownership, so I suspect there may be some instances where BLM owns the mineral rights, but not the surface. See clips of the BLM recreation map.

The leases appear to overlap portions of the Oregon Trail Keeney Pass, South Alkali Sand Hills, Oregon Trail Tub Mountain, and Oregon Trail Birch Creek Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Unlike hardrock mining, BLM has the ability to say no to an oil and gas leasing, but they did not in this case, even though ACECs were involved.

Given the high amount of very low lease rates, I’m fairly confident that these leases are for speculative purposes, in particular to pad the “acres under lease” totals for the company(ies) that hold the leases. The fracking boom has resulted in investors who are dazzled by the gross acres number rather than any numbers relating to probable or proven reserves of fossil fuels, which are very likely very low in this case. In other words, it way for companies to inflate their stock value.

Nonetheless, rising petroleum prices, new technologies could make these leases competitive in the future. As for fossil fuels Malheur County, Oregon (and elsewhere), just keep it in the ground.

Wild and Scenic Rivers

A listing of 327.3 miles of potential additions the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System found on Bureau of Land Management holding in Malheur County Oregon may be downloaded here. The proposed additions would expand two existing wild and scenic rivers and establish five new wild and scenic rivers:

• Black Canyon Wild and Scenic River

• Canyon Creek Wild and Scenic River

• Cottonwood Creek Wild and Scenic River

• Malheur Wild and Scenic River Additions

• Oregon Canyon Mountains Wild and Scenic River

• Owyhee Wild and Scenic River Additions

• South Fork Carter Creek Wild and Scenic River

• South Fork Indian Creek Wild and Scenic River

• Succor Creek Wild and Scenic River