Feds lay siege to Nevada ranch

[masterrig 1]

I live in the 'high desert' country. Not all that far from Big Bend. With your experience in agriculture, I can see where you would have an understanding of things. As you know, cattle don't 'scalp' the grass. Sheep and goats will. Ranchers in places like Arizona and Nevada, as an example do the best they can with what they have because they love the work while producing a good product, the best they can. In Bundy's case, he has continued ranching where his grand parents started. That means a lot to agricultural folks. I don't see a problem with that. From all I could find, the BLM has managed to run-off all the other ranchers from that area and as far as I am concerned, totally mis-handled the Bundy case. Truth of the matter, Bundy probably mis-handled things on his end. I really feel there is more to all of this than we are being told. We may never know.
Living in a semi-arid area, I've been on ranches where blades of grass are acres apart and no devastation by cattle. That is what I question. We have a lot of country out here, quite similar to that which is in Nevada. It's hard country and people are just trying to make a living. I do feel that much of the argument is maybe, a bit exaggerated to gain public support. (?)


Chuck

[StreetScooby 5]

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Truth of the matter, Bundy probably mis-handled things on his end. I really feel there is more to all of this than we are being told. We may never know.

+1

We are all engines of karma

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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I live in the 'high desert' country. Not all that far from Big Bend.

That's beautiful country, in my eyes.

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...cattle don't 'scalp' the grass. Sheep and goats will.

I've found that a combination of horses and goats works fairly well to maintain a pasture. Goats will eat grass, but really prefer broad-leaved plants as they are browsers. Horses prefer the grass. Goats keep the weeds from taking over when horses keep the grass cropped low. There's no question, though, that goats can be very destructive if they overpopulate an area.

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Ranchers in places like Arizona and Nevada, as an example do the best they can with what they have because they love the work while producing a good product, the best they can.

No question about that.

Quote

In Bundy's case, he has continued ranching where his grand parents started. That means a lot to agricultural folks. I don't see a problem with that.

While I can respect his perseverance, I disagree strongly with his tactics. I see several distinct, though related, problems. First, he fought the grazing fee (which I understand him doing) but when he lost in court (twice) he resorted to an argument that the entire United States is illegitimate. This is pissing on the head of every person who has ever fought or sacrificed in defense of this country. Then, he threatened anyone who tried to enforce the court order to remove his cattle from lands where he was trespassing.

I find it telling that he has only been able to continue ranching by spreading his herd over land that is 5-6 fold larger than his families original lease. This is land that his family never had any permit to use, and in fact the land is so marginal that it has never been under a grazing permit to anybody. How viable can his operation be if he needs to "occupy" so much land that was never in his families grazing permit? Do you think he would be able to sustain his operation if he confined his cattle to the land originally permitted to his family? If I pastured my animals on my neighbor's land, without their permission and against their explicit wishes, and refused to remove them even in the face of a court order, could I really then claim to be a good farmer wisely using the land as my grandparents did?

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From all I could find, the BLM has managed to run-off all the other ranchers from that area ...

Perhaps. Certainly there are fewer ranches than they were in the past. If an operation is barely scraping by, adding a grazing fee or reducing the number of cattle/acre could push a farm to the point where it isn't worth running. I haven't seen anything about the actual amount of the fees. As far as I can tell, though, there are a lot of factors that are squeezing small farm operations. Profit margins are tiny, so the only way to make a living is to do things on a sufficiently large scale. Small ranchers are competing with giant feedlots and factory farms. In the past it may have been possible to scrape by with a small herd, but today the return per cow is too small, due to competition. No doubt regulation, such as cradle to grave tracking of animals (which resulted from scares about mad cow disease), adds to the economic stress. Most people do not appreciate how high-tech farm operations have to be these days.

I suspect that, in many cases, it's convenient to blame the government, when grazing fees are just one of several factors that pile up to make a farming operation unprofitable. It is possible, of course, that in some cases the grazing fees would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

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Living in a semi-arid area, I've been on ranches where blades of grass are acres apart and no devastation by cattle. That is what I question.

I don't have experience in your area, so I'm happy to take your word. When I worked at the University of Arizona, I saw study sites where some plots were fenced to exclude cattle, so on one side of the fence there was normal grazing pressure and on the other vegetation had not been grazed for a decade or more. The difference was really quite remarkable. Biodiversity and total biomass was higher by orders of magnitude in the ungrazed plots. Grazed land was dominated by a few grass species (mostly non-native) and cacti, which thrive because the cattle leave them alone but eat competing species. If you stand in the middle of a grazed area it looks OK, not stripped bare or devastated. It's only when you can directly compare grazed and ungrazed areas that the effect of grazing is obvious.

I would not argue that every place should be protected from grazing, that would be stupid. If an area is biologically productive enough to sustain an economically viable ranching operation, then generally it should be used. I'd only suggest that some areas here and there be set aside as refuges so the native species are not lost entirely.

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It's hard country and people are just trying to make a living.

I really do respect that.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[StreetScooby 5]

Someone sent me a very interesting article (...thank you, you know who are you ), and I decided to post it here:

The Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing

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The toothless tortoise is ill equipped to harvest and masticate range forage. The tortoise can harvest only tender vegetation, and it can't masticate even that. The tortoise can't process enough bulky, low analysis forage fast enough to meet its nutritional requirements (Nagy & Medica 1986). They solved this problem long ago—they allow other animals to do it for them. Desert tortoises feed primarily on dung. The more animals using the range, the more dung, which makes more food available for tortoises.

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BLM made further cuts in grazing use in the early fifties and again in the sixties. In 1970 1,500 acres of tortoise habitat were fenced and closed to all grazing by livestock. Sheep use was eliminated. Four years later Coombs (1974) reported 39 tortoises per square mile. Between Hardy's census in 1948 and Coombs' census in 1974, livestock grazing was reduced 100 percent. There was a 74 percent reduction in tortoise density.

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Summary and Conclusions
The historical record shows that:
1. Desert tortoises have coexisted with cattle for 300 years in California and Mexico and at least 100 years elsewhere.
2. The highest tortoise densities known occurred at a time when
overgrazing by livestock was the severest ever known.
3. The fewer the cattle on a range, the fewer the number of tortoises.
4. Excluding cattle for many years endangers the tortoise population.

If this is really about the tortoise, why is BLM killing them by not allowing cattle to graze? Sounds nonsensical to me, having read this paper.

We are all engines of karma

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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Someone sent me a very interesting article...

Interesting, indeed!

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[GeorgiaDon 340]

One comment on the article, though: the insinuation that desert tortoises are dependent on dung for food, and are unable to masticate sufficient non-dung food to survive, is incorrect. Tortoises do very well on a diet of native grasses, wildflowers, and occasional fruits including cactus fruits. This diet is used for captive tortoises and produces healthy tortoises with normal reproduction and lifespan. Facilities such as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum do not feed their tortoises cow pies.

That being said, it would not surprise me that tortoises eat and can do well on cow dung. The content of nutrients remaining in the dung is high (which is why it's favored for manure), and as it's already partly pre-digested those nutrients may be easier for the tortoise to absorb and use.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[masterrig 1]

GeorgiaDon

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I live in the 'high desert' country. Not all that far from Big Bend.

That's beautiful country, in my eyes.

Quote

...cattle don't 'scalp' the grass. Sheep and goats will.

I've found that a combination of horses and goats works fairly well to maintain a pasture. Goats will eat grass, but really prefer broad-leaved plants as they are browsers. Horses prefer the grass. Goats keep the weeds from taking over when horses keep the grass cropped low. There's no question, though, that goats can be very destructive if they overpopulate an area.

Quote

Ranchers in places like Arizona and Nevada, as an example do the best they can with what they have because they love the work while producing a good product, the best they can.

No question about that.

Quote

In Bundy's case, he has continued ranching where his grand parents started. That means a lot to agricultural folks. I don't see a problem with that.

While I can respect his perseverance, I disagree strongly with his tactics. I see several distinct, though related, problems. First, he fought the grazing fee (which I understand him doing) but when he lost in court (twice) he resorted to an argument that the entire United States is illegitimate. This is pissing on the head of every person who has ever fought or sacrificed in defense of this country. Then, he threatened anyone who tried to enforce the court order to remove his cattle from lands where he was trespassing.

I find it telling that he has only been able to continue ranching by spreading his herd over land that is 5-6 fold larger than his families original lease. This is land that his family never had any permit to use, and in fact the land is so marginal that it has never been under a grazing permit to anybody. How viable can his operation be if he needs to "occupy" so much land that was never in his families grazing permit? Do you think he would be able to sustain his operation if he confined his cattle to the land originally permitted to his family? If I pastured my animals on my neighbor's land, without their permission and against their explicit wishes, and refused to remove them even in the face of a court order, could I really then claim to be a good farmer wisely using the land as my grandparents did?

Quote

From all I could find, the BLM has managed to run-off all the other ranchers from that area ...

Perhaps. Certainly there are fewer ranches than they were in the past. If an operation is barely scraping by, adding a grazing fee or reducing the number of cattle/acre could push a farm to the point where it isn't worth running. I haven't seen anything about the actual amount of the fees. As far as I can tell, though, there are a lot of factors that are squeezing small farm operations. Profit margins are tiny, so the only way to make a living is to do things on a sufficiently large scale. Small ranchers are competing with giant feedlots and factory farms. In the past it may have been possible to scrape by with a small herd, but today the return per cow is too small, due to competition. No doubt regulation, such as cradle to grave tracking of animals (which resulted from scares about mad cow disease), adds to the economic stress. Most people do not appreciate how high-tech farm operations have to be these days.

I suspect that, in many cases, it's convenient to blame the government, when grazing fees are just one of several factors that pile up to make a farming operation unprofitable. It is possible, of course, that in some cases the grazing fees would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Quote

Living in a semi-arid area, I've been on ranches where blades of grass are acres apart and no devastation by cattle. That is what I question.

I don't have experience in your area, so I'm happy to take your word. When I worked at the University of Arizona, I saw study sites where some plots were fenced to exclude cattle, so on one side of the fence there was normal grazing pressure and on the other vegetation had not been grazed for a decade or more. The difference was really quite remarkable. Biodiversity and total biomass was higher by orders of magnitude in the ungrazed plots. Grazed land was dominated by a few grass species (mostly non-native) and cacti, which thrive because the cattle leave them alone but eat competing species. If you stand in the middle of a grazed area it looks OK, not stripped bare or devastated. It's only when you can directly compare grazed and ungrazed areas that the effect of grazing is obvious.

I would not argue that every place should be protected from grazing, that would be stupid. If an area is biologically productive enough to sustain an economically viable ranching operation, then generally it should be used. I'd only suggest that some areas here and there be set aside as refuges so the native species are not lost entirely.

Quote

It's hard country and people are just trying to make a living.

I really do respect that.

Don

You certainly have done your homework and have a good grasp of all things agriculture. I've learned some things in reading your posts. I think, this whole thing is about 'who's right and who's wrong' in a very badly handled situation that has gone on too long. We don't know what is really in the minds of either side. It appears, we'll just have to sit back and see how it all shakes-out.
I'll have to agree with you about the high desert country. It's beautiful in a rough sort of way. Due to the drought, we're not seeing all that much of the cactus flowers that we have seen in the past, this time of year. No signs of grass, either. Rain is only a 'wish' and water wells are drying up. Just a bit un-settling.



Chuck

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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What is your take on private property, and the individual pursuit?

In general, people take better care of property when they own it. People do better when they can benefit from their own efforts. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" could never work, because there is no incentive for anybody to work harder than just "phoning it in", or to take any risks. These things seem obvious to me.

On the other hand, I would not like to live in a society that was entirely without compassion or empathy, and that placed no limit on far people could fall before being offered a helping hand. There are such places, where many people live in true extreme poverty and kids are sent out to forage garbage dumps to find discarded food that is not too spoiled to be consumed. On the other hand, in those places people with any wealth have to live in virtual compounds, with fences, guards, bars on the windows, take a different route to work every day to deter kidnappers, etc. It seems to me there is an optimum balance in there somewhere, and that neither extreme (government does everything for you, or government does nothing for you) works well.

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What's your take on state's rights? Do you prefer a "market" where there are 50 different experiments going on, or not?

I'd prefer 50, or even 51 (including some federal) experiments. As it happens, every state does have land under its control (perhaps excepting Texas). I don't know much about the differences between management of state vs BLM/national forest land, so I can't say anything about the outcome of the "experiment". It's possible that many states don't control enough land to make the comparisons useful.

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Following on this discussion, one might ask if federal land should be transferred to state control. Would that be only BLM land, or national forest, national parks, etc as well?

At this point in time, there is an enormous amount of history that has happened, a substantial amount of which has been beyond the scope of our Founding Fathers, IMO.

True. The Founding Fathers were remarkably prescient, but of course they could not anticipate every circumstance that would arise in the future. They set guiding principles in the Constitution, and they set up a mechanism for passing laws and even modifying the Constitution, so they clearly recognized that the body of law that existed in 1776 would not be sufficient for all future time.

New laws are passed in response to new situations that arise. At the time of the Founding Fathers, the US was an agrarian country with a total population of about 2.5 million, less than San Diego County today. With no heavy industry, and few "large" population centers, there was essentially no pollution, so it's hardly a surprise that the Founders did not create an EPA. The germ theory of disease was still a century in the future, so no CDC in 1776. The country was vast and essentially unpopulated, except for native peoples who were not recognized as having rights at the time (so they could be pushed aside, herded onto reservations, or exterminated). Anyone who chaffed at the bounds of "society" was free to head West, find a plot of land, and homestead it. So it's true that much modern law is "outside the scope of our Founding Fathers", but that has been a natural consequence of situations that arose as populations grew, the land filled up, and opportunities for conflicting interests between people increased exponentially. Also as the land filled up, the need to set aside certain particularly iconic locations as national parks, for the use and enjoyment of all citizens, became apparent.

Another consequence of history follows from the way the country has grown throughout its history. Outside of the original colonies, territory has been acquired by war in a few cases, and by purchase (Louisiana Purchase, Mexican Cession of 1848, Gadsen Purchase, Alaska purchase) from France, Mexico, and Russia. Those purchases were done with US taxpayer dollars, and so the property became US federal property. The intent was to acquire those lands so their natural resources could be used for the benefit of the whole country. I suppose a modern day question would be, how can that goal best be met today? Would giving the land to the states, or selling it off at fire sale prices, be consistent with the "original intent"?

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While I believe that capitalism is the best system yet demonstrated (as measured by the number of people taken out of poverty), I do not believe it is a stable system. It requires functioning markets, which require many buyers and many sellers. This tends to get out of whack over time. At the same time, markets provide a recourse that a centralized government doesn't. Don't like one seller, go to another. Don't like what the government is doing to you, not much recourse there.

I agree with this. However you mention that capitalism can be unstable over time. In part, this is because in an unregulated winner-take-all environment the inevitable result will be monopolies. So, I believe one of the legitimate roles of government is to regulate business to prevent anti-competitive practices and the emergence of monopolies.

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Where is a reasonable line to draw for environmental protection? Most people (maybe not all) would agree it should not be OK to pee in (or otherwise contaminate) shared resources such as water and air, even if those resources passed through private land.

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What does it mean to be a responsible citizen in a civilized society? Much of that must come from your family, then your aunts and uncles (...your culture, using my simple definition), then an education system. This is a major failing in our society right now.

While I agree that problems would be minimized if people behaved responsibly, I don't think just trusting everyone to be "responsible" all the time is sufficient. For one thing, definitions of "responsible" can vary. Some people will say their only responsibility is to look out for themselves, and everybody else can take care of their own needs. The result of this is that no care need be taken to avoid harming others as long as you yourself can benefit. If your only responsibility is to maximize your own wealth, there is no impediment to taking things by force, killing people who get in your way, etc. We have laws against these things because we recognize that not everyone will behave "responsibly".

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At this point in my life, I am firmly convinced there is absolutely no such thing as "for the greater good" if someone else is making that decision for you. If you make that decision yourself, wonderful, you're being a responsible citizen. What other recourse is there besides an out of control government imposing some ill-defined will on you?

Here are two examples, from my experience working in public health, of conflicts between private property rights and the "greater good":
1. At one time rabies was very common in this country. In the late 1800s there were several hundred deaths every year, and you have to remember that the population of the country was less than 40 million. Virtually all of these cases were due to people being bitten by rabid dogs. Today, in most years there are no human rabies cases, even though we have 10 times the population. The difference is entirely because we require, by law, that dog owners have their pets vaccinated against rabies. Trusting that dog owners would always voluntarily vaccinate their dogs obviously would not work, as many people are ticketed and fined for failing to do it. Dogs are (from a legal point of view) private property, and the purpose of the law is to reduce risk to humans; that dogs are protected too is a fortunate serendipity. Does the government have a legitimate interest in protecting people from rabies? Are laws requiring vaccination of dogs (which is in effect telling people what to do with their private property) a legitimate exercise of government power, or should we trust to education and "people acing responsibly"?

2. Discarded tires are notorious for catching water and breeding huge amounts of mosquitoes. Some properties have huge dumps of discarded tires, which breed mosquitoes that transmit a wide variety of diseases throughout the surrounding area. Anyone living nearby will be at increased risk of diseases such as West Nile, not to mention being deprived of the use and enjoyment of their property due to being attacked by hordes of mosquitoes. Again, is it reasonable to have laws that require people to clean up tire dumps on their property? Or should the neighbors just have to sell and move somewhere else?

To me, examples such as these demonstrate that people should not be permitted to create serious health hazards for people living nearby. What constitutes a "serious health hazard", and where the balance between property rights and rights of people to not be unnecessarily exposed to health hazards, is something that could be debated. What is of interest here is, does the state have any legitimate interest in protecting people from such risks to their health?

I think that's enough for one post. Thanks for the interesting discussion.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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You certainly have done your homework and have a good grasp of all things agriculture. I've learned some things in reading your posts. I think, this whole thing is about 'who's right and who's wrong' in a very badly handled situation that has gone on too long. We don't know what is really in the minds of either side. It appears, we'll just have to sit back and see how it all shakes-out.
I'll have to agree with you about the high desert country. It's beautiful in a rough sort of way. Due to the drought, we're not seeing all that much of the cactus flowers that we have seen in the past, this time of year. No signs of grass, either. Rain is only a 'wish' and water wells are drying up. Just a bit un-settling.

Thanks Chuck. I've learned some things about this as well. The info about tortoises eating poop was quite thought provoking. I have to agree that government policy may often be unduely influenced by one side or the other, and once policies are in place they seem to become fossilized and are impervious to reassessment in the light of new data.

Hope you get rain soon. We had a drought here for three years and it killed a lot of trees on my property. Pastures dried up, and the price of hay went from $2.50/bale to $5-6/bale. Even though the rain came back the last 2 years, the price of hay has stayed up. Drought sucks.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[masterrig 1]

GeorgiaDon

Quote

You certainly have done your homework and have a good grasp of all things agriculture. I've learned some things in reading your posts. I think, this whole thing is about 'who's right and who's wrong' in a very badly handled situation that has gone on too long. We don't know what is really in the minds of either side. It appears, we'll just have to sit back and see how it all shakes-out.
I'll have to agree with you about the high desert country. It's beautiful in a rough sort of way. Due to the drought, we're not seeing all that much of the cactus flowers that we have seen in the past, this time of year. No signs of grass, either. Rain is only a 'wish' and water wells are drying up. Just a bit un-settling.

Thanks Chuck. I've learned some things about this as well. The info about tortoises eating poop was quite thought provoking. I have to agree that government policy may often be unduely influenced by one side or the other, and once policies are in place they seem to become fossilized and are impervious to reassessment in the light of new data.

Hope you get rain soon. We had a drought here for three years and it killed a lot of trees on my property. Pastures dried up, and the price of hay went from $2.50/bale to $5-6/bale. Even though the rain came back the last 2 years, the price of hay has stayed up. Drought sucks.

Don

You got that right! We're about in the middle of a 13-yr. drought. We have so many dead trees and more on the way, this area looks like some 'dead planet'. What I find interesting is, in regard to the tortoises is, when it rains, they are all over the place out here. During dry spells, you won't see a single one. You'll see many of them along the highways having been run-over. I like learning and sharing ideas. You're right about drought!! You mentioned the price of hay... I feed my horse and burro only Coastal Bermuda hay and a standard bale is going for $12.00 ea. Alfalfa is going for $14.00 - $16.00 ea. Most of what we're getting is 'old' barn stored. We we're getting some out of California for the same price till the drought hit out there. We're forecast 30% chance of rain this week-end but I'll believe it when I step-out and get wet.
Best to you in your business.


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

StreetScooby

Someone sent me a very interesting article (...thank you, you know who are you ), and I decided to post it here:

The Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing

Quote

The toothless tortoise is ill equipped to harvest and masticate range forage. The tortoise can harvest only tender vegetation, and it can't masticate even that. The tortoise can't process enough bulky, low analysis forage fast enough to meet its nutritional requirements (Nagy & Medica 1986). They solved this problem long ago—they allow other animals to do it for them. Desert tortoises feed primarily on dung. The more animals using the range, the more dung, which makes more food available for tortoises.

***
BLM made further cuts in grazing use in the early fifties and again in the sixties. In 1970 1,500 acres of tortoise habitat were fenced and closed to all grazing by livestock. Sheep use was eliminated. Four years later Coombs (1974) reported 39 tortoises per square mile. Between Hardy's census in 1948 and Coombs' census in 1974, livestock grazing was reduced 100 percent. There was a 74 percent reduction in tortoise density.

Quote

Summary and Conclusions
The historical record shows that:
1. Desert tortoises have coexisted with cattle for 300 years in California and Mexico and at least 100 years elsewhere.
2. The highest tortoise densities known occurred at a time when
overgrazing by livestock was the severest ever known.
3. The fewer the cattle on a range, the fewer the number of tortoises.
4. Excluding cattle for many years endangers the tortoise population.

If this is really about the tortoise, why is BLM killing them by not allowing cattle to graze? Sounds nonsensical to me, having read this paper.

Thanks for posting that... very informative!!


Chuck

[StreetScooby 5]

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the insinuation that desert tortoises are dependent on dung for food, and are unable to masticate sufficient non-dung food to survive, is incorrect.

That's good to know. Species that actually survive long in nature tend to be pretty adaptive.

This trends towards one of the things that drives me nuts in our current "social debate" environment. No one can seem to agree on the data. What's being measured? What does it mean? These days, it tends towards "casting assertions". I'd like to expect more from all those smart people living in Washington. I've learned to significantly temper that expectation over my decades of paying attention.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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I've learned some things in reading your posts.

wrto GeorgiaDon, I've done the same. It's always a nice thing to actually learn something from someone in a discussion. GeorgiaDon is very consistent with that. +1

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

wrto to my long reply to you, I agree well within reason to everything you posted.

We are all engines of karma

[wan2doit 6]

I have read the posts from pg 13 to 15, some in the beginning and a few in between. I'm not the best informed on this particular issue but have participated in many Federal and State land management planning processes in So. Fl. over the last 16 years as an advocate for public access to so called public land.
The points from craddock, mastwerrigger and GeorgiaDon have been very enlightening and interesting.
One underlying subtle problem I haven't noticed being focused on is the way the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the expertise of extreme environmental groups and their lawyers effective utilization of it to impose their own desires on the outcomes has impacted land decisions over the years so as to lay the groundwork for removing humans from the landscape that they don't think should be allowed to be there.
From what I've witnessed NEPA allows many outsiders from anywhere to load comments into any NEPA planning process to sway management in the direction they want it to go. Now I realize both sides of any argument have the same right to do this but for the most part few locals have the time or understand how to effectively comment to these processes and are heavily outgunned by these environmental pros that are very well funded with many specialty lawyers on their team to challenge almost any NEPA process due to even Federal agencies incompetence in running these NEPA processes.
The big issue down here that I have worked for 16 years on is off road vehicle (e.g. airboat, swamp buggy ATV etc.) access in swamp lands and endangered species such as the ESA fraud referred to as the Florida Panther which is the same cat that roams many areas of the West, Northwest and Southwest. The last 3 or 4 federal plans having to do with the Big Cypress Nat Preserve are being challenged by the hi-powered enviro groups because they didn't include ORV restrictions to the level they desired. ORV folks even worked for 5 years with a Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) to resolve outstanding issues that had extreme enviros on it to no end since the environmental FACA committee members have now begun litigation to undo those 5 years of work because they didn't get their way with the FACA group they were part of.
Now what I am whining about here in So Fl isn't just happening here - it is happening all over the US and is part of underlying hatred of the Feds in this Nation IMHO. Don't get me wrong though there are some great level headed feds in management down here but they cannot do what they want due to environmentalists, their lawyers and Federal judges inevitably making major agenda driven decisions over land management that are seriously compromising the ability to monitor what is happening on large land masses due to access restrictions on everyone including State and Feds.
Just wanted to bring this up to see what folks here know or think about this info.
I'm sure I will get ripped a bit or more but that's OK.
On a lighter note - Georgia Don your dz location brought back fond and not so fond memories of a sweet Georgia Southern Bell that broke my heart many many years ago. Some great/sad memories never die. That dz is a mere 50 miles from where she lived. It's been over 40 years so at least I'm over it now.

[masterrig 1]

StreetScooby

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I've learned some things in reading your posts.

wrto GeorgiaDon, I've done the same. It's always a nice thing to actually learn something from someone in a discussion. GeorgiaDon is very consistent with that. +1

Learning 'book knowledge' is good. Mixing that with 'practical knowledge' is real good and that is what GeorgiaDon brings to the table. Also, he has an open mind.


Chuck

[Amazon 7]

masterrig

***

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I've learned some things in reading your posts.

wrto GeorgiaDon, I've done the same. It's always a nice thing to actually learn something from someone in a discussion. GeorgiaDon is very consistent with that. +1

Learning 'book knowledge' is good. Mixing that with 'practical knowledge' is real good and that is what GeorgiaDon brings to the table. Also, he has an open mind.


Chuck

Indeed,

I think you will enjoy this... the type of ranchers I have known in this part of the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4VNg9YSQzw

He is about as far from the example that the Cliven Clan has exhibited as you can possibly get.

[masterrig 1]

Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen. His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.


Chuck

[StreetScooby 5]

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Just wanted to bring this up to see what folks here know or think about this info.

Thanks for the post. Good read.
What do you think should be done?

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen.Laugh His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.

Sounds like a wonderful neighborhood.

My wife does _NOT_ allow me to use power tools. She's worried about innocent bystanders...

We are all engines of karma

[jclalor 12]

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Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen. His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.

And this friend of yours, the Border patrol agent, would deserve to be shot and killed by some of his fellow Americans for doing nothing more than his job?

19 years ago today, some Militia in Oklahoma City decided that they didn't like the direction this country was going, we all know how that ended.

[wan2doit 6]

Not at all sure what to do about federal agency incompetence in running NEPA processes and subsequent litigation stemming from agency (NPS down here) mistakes which are sometimes such major whoppers I begin to suspect conspiracies with between environmental groups and NPS at highest levels to have plans challenged in federal court so a judge can decide major issues rather than folks that participated in NEPA.
Remember that in the ESA it says all federal agencies will further the purposes of this act. I am beginning to understand that includes the federal judiciary.
I am not looking to stray to far off topic here but the only examples I feel qualified to discuss are local ones I am very familiar with.
An example of a NEPA whopper just happened relatively recently.
Basic info rerquired here - Any NEPA plan process especially a controversial one (as per the Center for Environmental Quality CEQ) needs a federal register notice before commencing.
Well in Big Cypress National Preserve the 5 years of a FACA groups work was recently challenged in court. Then NPS unilaterally prohibits use of 40+ per cent of the secondary trails for ORVs produced by the FACA 5 year process.
After that NPS began a NEPA process to address all the issues hashed out over 5 years by the FACA group. OBTW I was at all FACA meetings and was appointed to 2 very important trail review sub committees and attended all those meetings.
This new access plan process was intended to cover trail specifications and try to end a multi year debate over what a few vague sentences in a 600 page ORV plan from 2000 meant.
Here is the whopper as per a very knowledgeable NPS staffer I trust - NPS at Big Cypress (who were in a hurry to do this plan) felt compelled to check with their upper level lawyers as to whether this plan process needed to be advertised in the federal register. Upper levels told them NO it wasn't required. So, the scoping portion of the plan process was begun very quickly and ran along until eventually the comment period closed and we were waiting for the next steps.
Surprise surprise - Recently we became aware of a federal register notice issued for this plan and a while later local NPS totally began a re-run of the scoping process that had already stupidly been begun improperly.
Now as to who caught the mistake - I don't know but it doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that NPS either doesn't know how to run their own show or there are real shennanigans going on within the Dep't of Interior and it's sub agencies. NPS staff has even suffered dismay at mistakes being made by their own employer and can't believe some errors are happening.
As far as solutions I can think of only one that can work for So Fl.
That solution in our case would be to remove NPS from the lands of the Big Cypress due to due to their being a federal agency and the access the federal NEPA law mandates for those who's mission in life is to disrupt proper land management in favor of their own warped idea of what is right. Until such time as this happens in Fl State agencies can change nothing since at best they are only cooperating agencies with NPS and can dictate NO actions without agreement from the Federal agency at the local and/or Wash. D.C. levels.
I am sure this same sort of thing happens routinely across America and has been for many years.
Very sad but true INHO.

[masterrig 1]

StreetScooby

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Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen.Laugh His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.

Sounds like a wonderful neighborhood.

My wife does _NOT_ allow me to use power tools. She's worried about innocent bystanders...

Does that include sharp objects?

Yessir! It's a real good 'neighborhood'. It's all ranch country


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

jclalor

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Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen. His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.

And this friend of yours, the Border patrol agent, would deserve to be shot and killed by some of his fellow Americans for doing nothing more than his job?

He's a bit too sly and better shot!

19 years ago today, some Militia in Oklahoma City decided that they didn't like the direction this country was going, we all know how that ended.

Yup!


Chuck

[GeorgiaDon 340]

masterrig

***

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Reminds me of a local rancher I cowboyed for, for years. He has a degree in chemistry and mathematics, retired Border Patrol Agent, self-taught machinist with a full machine shop, can make just about anything and fix everything. He's a member of our local water board. Owns and flies his own plane and you name it. His son and I made a leap out of his plane and landed on the ranch just shy of the roping pen.Laugh His kind can be found throughout the agricultural community.

Sounds like a wonderful neighborhood.

My wife does _NOT_ allow me to use power tools. She's worried about innocent bystanders...

Does that include sharp objects?


ChuckI'm guessing chain saws are right out.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)