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agreements that the agency has with the water boards.” Dick Gaiser, chairman of the Stanislaus National Forest Grazing Association, said all of theallotments areusedby familyop- erations, someofwhichhavebeenrunning cattle on them for five or six generations. “We as a group deal very well and work very well with the U.S. Forest Service on our allotments,” Gaiser said. “We try to keep the lines of communication open, and we work with them, and I think that’s
been very beneficial for us.” CaliforniaFarmBureau, alongwithsev- eral other organizations, intervened in the case on behalf of the Forest Service. Fisher saidCentral SierraEnvironmental ResourceCenter“conductedmonitoringto try to showwhy grazing should no longer happen in the forest areas.” She explained that “thiswas their attempt toprevent graz- ing or severely restrict grazing by alleging that theForestServicedoesn’thavepermits under state law.”
After the plaintiffs’ claims regarding the National Environmental Policy Act were dropped,adistrictcourt ruledinfavorof the Forest Service and the ranchers in August 2019. The environmental groups appealed the CleanWater Act portion of the ruling, andonApril 8, theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision. Developing a programof imple- mentation of water-quality objectives, the court ruled, isoutside its jurisdiction. Theregionalboardsetswaterqualityob- jectivesbyconsideringconditions that can “reasonablybeachievedthroughthecoor- dinated control of all factors which affect water quality in the area,” the court ruled. Nothing in the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act of 1969, under which regional boards regulatewater qualityand discharges, “wouldmake a discharger di- rectly liable for violating a water quality objective contained in a basin plan that is not contained in theapplicable (permits),” the court ruled. Fisher said the ruling means that one cannot be found liable for something that is not in the permit. She said ranchers re- ceive instructions from the Forest Service before they are allowed to release cattle to graze, basedon the Forest Service’s evalu- ation of the land and conditions. “They have to manage cattle on the al- lotments in a way that is protective of the environment,” Fisher said of the ranchers. “It’s not like they just have free range of the whole grazing area. They constantly have tomovethecows throughout theallotment so that nocowis in that area too long tode- stroy the area, including riparian growth, streambanks,meadowsandwaterquality.” Having to secure state permits on top of federal permits would have resulted in ranchers spending more time wrangling paperwork thancattle, dealingwith “dupli- cativeregulations,duplicativemanagement practices,duplicativereporting,”Fishersaid. “In ourmind—whichwas affirmed by the district court and the 9th Circuit—the Forest Service was in compliance with both state and federal water-quality regu- lationsandthereforedidn’tneedaddition- al permits,” she said. Brennan said the grazing allotments all “have a private-property component asso- ciatedwith them.” Sheadded, “Thatmeans ifyoustepawayfromthepublic-landspiece, and youdon’t have the capacity, you could be stepping away fromranching entirely. It certainlywouldhavebeenamakeorbreak for our operation.” This is the second time this year a court has ruled that regulating water is not its job. In February, a state appeals court turned aside claims in Monterey Coastkeeper v. Central Coast Water Quality Control Board that state water regulators were not doing their jobs and that the court needed to take over. “We’ve had a lot of partners in this litiga- tion, and thosepartnerships are so import- ant,” Brennan said, naming FarmBureau, theCaliforniaCattlemen’s Associationand localgrazingassociationsandpermittees. “I just personallywould like tosay thankyou.” (Kevin Hecteman i s an ass i stant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
qualitypermits areneededunder state law. The agreement recognizes that the Forest Service practices for protection of water qualityonfederal landcomplywithstatewa- terquality laws.Theenvironmental groups’ lawsuit argued thedealwas void. “It’s aheavilymanagedgrazing system,” saidSherriBrennan, arancherwhose fam- ily has been running cattle on forest-land allotments for decades. “Thosebest-man- agement practices are inplace tomeet the
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18 Ag Alert April 13, 2022
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