Online Messenger #211
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Friends,
Western Watersheds Project (WWP) has won a great court victory !!!
Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s Order
of today (9/28) rules in favor of Western Watersheds Project's challenge to 16 Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plans (RMPs) in 6 western states covering over 30,000,000 acres of public land.
This Order addresses the WWP challenge to two of the RMPs that are serving as test cases for all 16 Resource Management Plans being challenged. These two test cases are for the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve RMP in Idaho and the Pinedale RMP in western Wyoming.
The federal court has granted summary judgment to WWP on both FLPMA and NEPA claims and denied all summary judgment claims by the BLM and intervenors.
This case will resonate in many ways including, in particular, the failure of the BLM to consider overall cumulative effects of all permitted activities and all impacts on Greater Sage Grouse. The Order also strongly addresses failure of the BLM to comply with its own sensitive species policy and its national sage grouse conservation policy.
WWP’s excellent legal representation in this case is by Laird Lucas of Advocates for the West in Boise.
All-in-all this is a very important win for western public lands management and all native sage-steppe wildlife including greater sage grouse.