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New Hopes for Action at Carrizo Plain Arise
By David Whitney
By David Whitney
WASHINGTON -- A federal official whom environmentalists have considered to be a dogmatic opponent of efforts to reduce cattle grazing at the Carrizo Plain National Monument is being reassigned by his agency.That has led to new hopes that a management plan for the monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County, home to a high concentration of rare and endangered species, can be finished.
Marlene Braun, former manager of the monument, committed suicide May 2, 2005, at her home on the 250,000-acre national monument. She left a note saying that she could no longer take the abuse she had endured from Ron Huntsinger, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield office.
Now Huntsinger is leaving his post and is moving to Washington, D.C., in January to become science coordinator for the agency.Though his new assignment was shocking to some of his fiercest critics, his departure comes in advance of the first meeting of the newly reconstituted advisory committee that will try to reassemble a resource management plan that also fell victim to the feud.
According to Huntsinger, the plan's only controversial element dealt with cattle grazing. The management plan that the committee was drafting called for reductions in grazing, and some who worked closely with Braun believed Huntsinger was assigned to oversee Carrizo in 2004 to stop the restrictions.
No replacement for Hunt-singer has been named, and Braun's job has not been permanently filled. But with new BLM officials coming in, those opposing cattle grazing on the monument hope the animosities of old will dissipate.
"There are some lingering strong feelings about Marlene's death and how BLM's actions may have contributed to that," said Geary Hund, the Wilderness Society's California program director for BLM lands. "Mr. Huntsinger's departure creates an opportunity for a fresh start."
In an interview, Huntsinger said he is not leaving only because of Braun's death. "Certainly that would have been a consideration," he said, "because there are some people who really supported Marlene." But Huntsinger, who has a science background, said he is looking forward to helping ensure that the best science is applied in agency decisions. He worked in Washington from 1989 to 1996 as head of the water resources and watershed program.
Neil Havlik, natural resources director for the city of San Luis Obispo, who headed the advisory committee working on the management plan and will do so again, said the plan was 90 percent finished when, months before Braun's suicide, it began to unravel within the BLM."Much of what was really going on was not evident to the committee," Havlik said. "But there certainly would have been some hangover from that situation on the new committee. It's in everyone's interest to have new faces, and to move on."
Havlik was reappointed this summer to lead the newly reconstituted advisory panel. But he said it took a frustratingly long time to get the go-ahead to begin meeting, and the January session, though promised, is still not scheduled.Whether the delay had anything to do with finding a new post for Huntsinger is unclear. Huntsinger said he had begun talking to the Interior Department about the science post when the BLM announced the advisory panel was being reformed.
A question of style
Huntsinger said his differences with Braun were not so much about grazing as about her style. She was suspended for five days in January 2005 for criticizing Huntsinger in an e-mail to Carrizo partners, according to an investigation by the Interior Department's inspector general. Even so, her critical e-mails continued.
The inspector general found plenty of blame to pass around. Personal differences were allowed to fester, and the BLM made no effort to step in even though it had resources available, according to a summary of the investigation. The investigative report has not been released, and it is unknown whether disciplinary action was taken.
The one fact over which there is no disagreement is the inspector general's conclusion that the feud "adversely affected management" of the monument, created in 2001 by executive order just as President Clinton was leaving office.
Huntsinger said he supported the monument's creation. The BLM is working hard to acquire privately owned lands within its borders. He hopes that one day it will become home to the endangered California condor.
Still, Huntsinger remains skeptical that cattle grazing there is on its way out."The monument is 250,000 acres of what appears to be largely unaltered habitat," he said. "But when you get down and look at it, about 70 percent of the vegetation is non-native. Grazing is one of the most effective ways to restore native conditions, and I think it is going to continue."
But Havlik said the latest scientific standards point to a new direction for the Carrizo, and that he'd like to lead the advisory committee in that direction.
"Livestock grazing in much of the monument's valley floor is unjustifiable," Havlik said. "That doesn't mean none, but only when there is sufficient rainfall and forage."
With Huntsinger gone and the BLM agreeing to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact study, Havlik said he hopes those views now will get a more receptive airing at the BLM.
David Whitney covers Central Coast issues for The Tribune in the McClatchy bureau in Washington, D.C.