BLM sued over road maintenance at Steens Mountain
By: JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 10:30 AM PDT
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| Jeff Barnard | Associated Press
This Oct. 16, 1997 file photo shows Big Indian Gorge, cut by a glacier into the side of Steens Mountain in the high desert near Frenchglen. The Oregon Natural Desert Association has sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over road maintenance in an area south of the mountain. |
BURNS — A conservation group has sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over maintenance work on old roads in congressionally protected areas around Steens Mountain in the high desert of Eastern Oregon.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Portland by the Oregon Natural Desert Association claims BLM violated environmental laws by running a road grader and a backhoe over 15 miles of overgrown jeep trails that were supposed to melt back into the landscape as part of special protections enacted by Congress.
‘‘Our concern is that without any environmental analysis there is no understanding of what they have exposed this country to now in terms of invasive weeds and habitat degradation,’’ Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, said Tuesday. Some of the road work was done in an area designated as wilderness as part of the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area, created by Congress in 2000 to limit grazing and protect fish and wildlife habitat around the mountain, which rises dramatically out of the flat sagebrush country and is a popular destination in the high desert country. BLM resource area manager Joan Suther said the work — done to improve access for a wild horse roundup and controlled burning — was covered by existing management plans that went through environmental review. Suther said they have been doing similar road maintenance projects, some within the boundaries of the Steens protection area, since the mid-1990s. She added that BLM is considering doing an internal review of the project. The association and BLM are to meet Friday to discuss their differences.
On the Net:
BLM management plans:
http://www.blm.gov/or/districts/burns/plans/burnsrmp.php
Oregon Natural Desert Association: www.onda.org
