Will an injunction prohibiting grazing on eastern
Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national forests devastate
the local economy? Yes, says Oregon State University economist Fred
Obermiller. No, says Pacific Rivers Council, the environmental
group whose lawsuit forced the injunction to protect habitat needed
by endangered salmon. The dueling studies respond to a July federal
court ruling which found that the Forest Service failed to consider
the potential impacts of grazing and other ongoing activities on
the endangered Snake River chinook salmon (HCN, 8/8/94).
Obermiller’s study, commissioned by the Wallowa County Court,
determined that if all 8,000 cows were kicked off the
Wallowa-Whitman by Sept. 1, ranchers would lose more than $3
million, largely because they would immediately have to sell
livestock at a loss. The Forest Service ordered just over 200 cows
off the forest and shifted some 1,000 others to less sensitive
pastures within the forest. The Pacific Rivers study, prepared by
ECO Northwest, a Eugene, Ore., consulting firm, says Obermiller
failed to consider that some cattle will stay on the forests and
that most ranchers won’t have to sell off livestock early. Any
savvy rancher would have anticipated the injunction and made other
arrangements to pasture livestock on private lands, say the authors
of the 20-page rebuttal. To obtain Economic Consequences of an
Injunction to Protect Salmon Habitat on the Wallowa-Whitman and
Umatilla National Forests, or Obermiller’s report, contact the
Pacific Rivers Council, P.O. Box 10798, Eugene, OR 97440
(503/345-0119).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dueling studies.
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