FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wilderness victory: judge halts construction of five-mile fence on Juniper Mountain

A judge agrees with ONDA that BLM likely needs to consider the wilderness values present on Juniper Mountain before constructing a five-mile fence.

ONDA obtained another victory today in its campaign to protect wilderness values on eastern Oregon's public lands. In response to an appeal filed by ONDA, Administrative Law Judge James H. Heffernan issued an order enjoining the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from constructing a five-mile fence on the ridgeline of Juniper Mountain, which is roughly 50 miles northeast of the town of Lakeview, within BLM's Lakeview District. The project also would have created two cattle guards, all within an area ONDA field inventories have documented as having outstanding wilderness values according to BLM's own criteria and protocol.

The decision, issued by a judge sitting within the Department of the Interior's Office of Hearings and Appeals, looks favorably on ONDA's critiques of BLM's wilderness analysis. While the agency claims to have undertaken its own substantial analysis of wilderness values in the area, the only actual evidence in BLM's environmental review of roadlessness, naturalness, and opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation--is ONDA's citizen inventory report. The judge states that "ONDA has presented objective proof establishing a sufficient likelihood of error in BLM's conclusion that the area affected by the Projects lacks wilderness character and therefore that BLM should have considered the impacts to wilderness values."

This decision comes on the heels of another injunction issued by the same judge several days ago, halting a large rangeland project on the Lakeview District's Beatys Butte.

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