August 27, 2019 VIA OVERNIGHT DELIVERY & EMAIL Donald N. Gonzalez Vale District Manager Bureau of Land Management 100 Oregon Street Vale OR 97918 [email protected] Re: Southeastern Oregon Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement Dear Mr. Gonzalez: On behalf of the Oregon Natural Desert Association (“ONDA”), Audubon Society of Portland, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club Oregon Chapter, Western Watersheds Project, and The Wilderness Society,1 please accept, fully consider, and specifically respond to these comments on the Bureau of Land Management’s (“BLM”) proposed plan amendment for the Southeastern Oregon Resource Management Plan (“SEORMP”).2 INTRODUCTION The SEORMP governs management of about 4.6 million acres of public land in southeast Oregon’s high desert. This region stretches from the remote Sheepshead and Trout Creek Mountains of the northern Great Basin, to the broad expanses of sagebrush dissected by the Owyhee Wild and Scenic Rivers canyonlands, to the southeastern front of the Blue Mountains, where the Malheur River emerges to join the Snake River. These are some of the most remote and wild landscapes in the lower 48 states. In fact, more than half of this remarkable landscape has been recognized by BLM and citizens alike as having irreplaceable wilderness values. 1 We provide contact and other information for each of the groups joining these comments, in Appendix A. 2 See BLM, Notice of Availability of the Draft Southeastern Oregon Resource Management Plan Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Malheur Field Office, Vale District, Oregon, 84 Fed. Reg. 25304 (May 31, 2019). Page 1 of 148 This vast expanse of sagebrush steppe is a vitally important part of our national heritage. It is home to more than 350 species of fish and wildlife. This includes threatened, endangered, and sensitive species such as the Greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbit, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, lynx, and three species of native trout—redband, bull, and Lahontan cutthroat. These species depend both on native sage-steppe uplands and the infrequent but highly significant perennial and intermittent streams, springs, wet meadows and riparian areas that breathe life into this arid, high desert landscape and feed into hidden canyons of the Owyhee Wild and Scenic Rivers. In 2002, BLM adopted the SEORMP, a broad-scale land use plan intended to guide management of this area for two decades. The SEORMP provides “by tracts or areas for the use of the public lands.” 43 U.S.C. § 1712(a). Among other things, the plan sets allocations and areas available for activities like livestock grazing, motorized vehicle use, and mining, and also areas to emphasize resources like ecological, recreational, and scenic values. These and other decisions made in the plan impact wilderness values, including roadlessness, on the public lands. Yet, BLM had failed to consider the plan’s impacts to wilderness. Under the George W. Bush administration, BLM had been directed to disavow its obligation to consider or manage for wilderness values in public land use planning. In a 2003 settlement agreement with the state of Utah, BLM had agreed to an interpretation of FLPMA limiting the agency to a one-time review, assertedly completed decades ago during a 1970s inventory, of areas with wilderness characteristics. The agency therefore agreed (1) that it would cease recommending lands for permanent preservation as wilderness; (2) that it would not, going forward, “establish, manage or otherwise treat public lands . as WSAs or as wilderness . absent congressional authorization”; and (3) that it would withdraw its 2001 wilderness inventory handbook, which contained guidelines for further wilderness recommendations. See Utah v. Norton, 396 F.3d 1281, 1284–85 (10th Cir. 2005) (describing the history of the litigation leading to the settlement); see generally Utah v. Norton, No. 2:96-cv-0870, 2006 WL 2711798 (D. Utah Sept. 20, 2006) (describing the settlement). In 2003, ONDA challenged BLM’s Record of Decision adopting the SEORMP. Among other concerns, ONDA contended that BLM violated NEPA and other laws because the agency had failed (1) to analyze the effects of the plans on lands possessing wilderness characteristics, and (2) to analyze reasonable management options for livestock grazing and motorized use. In 2006, ONDA challenged BLM’s subsequently-adopted Lakeview RMP, which had similarly failed to consider impacts to wilderness just like any other resource or value on the public lands. A district court judge ruled for BLM in both cases, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. Or. Natural Desert Ass’n v. Bureau of Land Mgmt. (“ONDA v. BLM”), 625 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir. 2010). Because BLM had the authority, under FLPMA, to manage wilderness values on the public lands, it therefore had an obligation, under NEPA, to address “whether, and to what extent, wilderness values are now present in the planning area . and, if so, how the Plan should treat land with such values.” Id. at 1122. BLM also had failed to consider an alternative that proposed closing more than a fraction of the planning area to motorized vehicle use, considering Page 2 of 148 no alternative that would have closed more than 0.77% of the area to off-road vehicles. Id. at 1124. The Ninth Circuit initially had vacated the SEORMP and directed BLM to prepare a new plan. See Or. Natural Desert Ass’n v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 531 F.3d 1114, 1116 (9th Cir. 2008). After two years of negotiations, however, the parties entered into a settlement agreement on the issue of relief. BLM was allowed to keep the two land use plans in place to guide resource management, but agreed to interim protective measures for wilderness values and to a public process for updating its inventory information and preparing amendments to the two plans. The 2010 Settlement Agreement applies to both the SEORMP and the Lakeview RMP, and it remains in force until BLM issues a new Record of Decision for each plan. See Or. Natural Desert Ass’n v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., No. 3:03-cv-1017-JE, ECF 129 (D. Or. Sept. 28, 2010) (order granting parties’ motion for voluntary dismissal and incorporating settlement agreement into order so that it is enforceable); Or. Natural Desert Ass’n v. Gammon, No. 6:06-cv-523-HO, ECF 99 (D. Or. Nov. 17, 2010) (same in Lakeview case). At its core, the 2010 Settlement Agreement requires BLM to update its wilderness inventory for both planning areas and to then consider alternatives for both plans that take into account wilderness values and different management options for grazing and motorized use. The Agreement provides for interim protections for wilderness values; coordination with national guidance and coordination between the Lakeview and Vale district re-inventory and plan amendment efforts; application of the regulatory “minimization criteria” for motorized routes and areas designated under the plans; and consideration of areas no longer available for livestock grazing, and mechanisms for voluntary permit relinquishment. ONDA appreciates the complexity of BLM’s task in amending the SEORMP and Lakeview RMP, and in developing and selecting management decisions that, for example, appropriately balance motorized and non-motorized recreational uses and protect important desert resources. We also understand that BLM is not able to turn back the clock and undo decades of damaging livestock grazing and motorized route propagation. Nevertheless, the approach and proposed alternatives articulated in the DEIS and Draft RMP is highly problematic in a number of respects—and would be unlawful if adopted as BLM’s final plan amendment. BLM’s problems stem in large part from heavy-handed, anti-conservation directives from the agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. Public records show that, after their wilderness inventory update identifying 1.2 million acres of lands with wilderness character (“LWC”), local managers at the Vale District and Oregon/Washington State Office had prepared a Draft EIS identifying and evaluating Alternative C as the agency’s preferred alternative. Alternative C was advanced as a balanced approach that would “protect and improve natural values while providing for commodity production and other uses.” See DEIS at 2-21. The agency developed a detailed methodology to highlight 27 wilderness character units (167,550 acres) that would be prioritized for wilderness protection. DEIS Appx. C at C-2. Eighteen of those units are contiguous to existing Wilderness Study Areas. The local resource advisory council, the SEORAC, had gone even further. That citizen- and stakeholder-driven group recommended an alternative (upon which Alternative D is based) Page 3 of 148 that would prioritize wilderness protection on 33 units (417,196 acres), while again still providing for commodity production and other uses on these public lands. DEIS at 2-25. The SEORAC too had developed a detailed model to evaluate and prioritize wilderness protection units, focusing on vegetation, hydrologic condition, and connectivity criteria. DEIS Appx. C at C-10. Up through late 2018, Alternative C was BLM’s preferred alternative. The local District and State Office managers had prepared all of their final briefing papers and drafted a Federal Register notice to announce the DEIS’s availability and identify Alternative C as the preferred alternative. On September 6, 2018, the State Director approved the Vale