FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wilderness victory: judge halts rangeland project on Beatys Butte

ONDA wins a second legal victory in as many years in its quest to have the Bureau of Land Management consider the outstanding wilderness values present on Beatys Butte.

Portland, Ore. Jun 25, 2007 ONDA achieved a significant victory today in its continuing efforts to protect and conserve wilderness values on eastern Oregon's public lands. Administrative Law Judge James H. Heffernan issued an order enjoining the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from implementing an extensive rangeland project on Beatys Butte.  The decision bars BLM from building more than 13 miles of new barbed-wire fence, 3.7 miles of above-ground pipelines, two miles of new road, 6 new water troughs, 3 steel storage tanks, and 3 cattle guards, in 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. According to the judge's decision, "the record raises serious doubt as to the adequacy of the factual basis for BLM's . . . conclusions." The judge also ruled that the relative harm and the public interest weigh in favor of granting ONDA's stay request, finding BLM's alleged harms to the agency to be "speculative."

This decision follows ONDA's victory in federal district court in 2006 challenging the East-West Gulch Projects decision that preceded this latest incarnation of these grazing-related projects. Last year, the district court ruled BLM violated NEPA when it refused to consider the impacts of the projects on wilderness values, instead improperly relying on outdated and inaccurate information, last collected in the 1970s, to conclude that wilderness simply was "not present" in the area. The district court then enjoined BLM from further construction, as well as use of already-built projects, until the agency completed a lawful environmental review.

After commenting on BLM's quickly revised review, which again concluded that there are no wilderness values present on Beatys Butte, ONDA then administratively appealed BLM's decision asking the Office of Hearings and Appeals to stay that decision pending a decision on the merits.

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