Idaho environmentalists secured their first court
victory in the ongoing struggle over who gets to lease the state’s
school endowment lands.
Judge Duff McKee of the
Ada County District Court ruled in December that the State Land
Board broke its rules when it combined two grazing leases into one
parcel, then awarded the package to a livestock company. By
combining the leases, the Land Board thwarted efforts by the
Committee for Idaho’s High Desert to obtain the parcels for
conservation purposes, and it gave Simplot Livestock Co. two leases
for the price of one, said Laird Lucas, the committee’s
attorney.
“This is an important decision, because
it tells the Land Board that it … cannot favor the livestock
industry,” said Lucas. The State Land Board must now repeat the
application process for the leases in Owyhee
County.
The same week, the Land Board barred
conservationist Jon Marvel from bidding against Simplot for other
leases in Owyhee County. The board claimed that Marvel, who wants
to improve riparian areas, would be taking valuable water sources
away from other livestock operations. Marvel said he never intended
to fence off the waterways, but instead would plant larkspur, a
native plant poisonous to livestock, as an inducement for ranchers
to keep their cattle from the area.
Last month,
Marvel filed a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the
1995 state law that ousted him from the auction. The law allows
Idaho’s Land Board to determine who is a “qualified bidder” for
grazing leases.
*Jenny
Emery
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Land Board bias questioned.
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