One of the biggest issues is the huge impact that livestock grazing has on watershed values and water quality.  Fecal coliform contamination makes water unfit for drinking by the thousands of hikers, fishermen, hunters, backpackers, campers, and others who visit the roadless and wilderness areas affected by this grazing management plan.  Water quality is also degraded by cattle hooves crumbling stream banks and by the over-grazing of meadows.  The resulting bare soil and erosion create sedimentation that pollutes streams.

   CSERC and the other conservation groups who responded to the “Rangeland Allotments Phase 1” plan made it very clear in comment letters that no group was asking for a halt to livestock grazing within this vast area.  CSERC recognizes that for some permittees, livestock grazing on the public forest is a family heritage.  CSERC also recognizes that allowing livestock grazing in the national forest increases the likelihood that ranchers will be able to profitably hold onto foothill ranches that might otherwise be converted to subdivisions.  But the public forest grazing benefits for the ranchers need to be balanced against the significant ecological impacts that livestock grazing now causes for certain wildlife species, for plants, for recreation, and for water quality on the affected national forest lands.

   In our comments, CSERC urged the Forest Service to consider at least one compromise alternative that would still allow grazing, but would better protect water and wildlife.  Instead, the Forest stuck with a final plan almost identical to the current management that presently causes so many problems.   With no other option left, CSERC and five other conservation groups jointly filed a formal legal appeal in early September – challenging the approved plan and the many legal inadequacies of the planning process.