A veteran employee of the Bureau of Land Management in the San Luis Valley filed a whistleblower complaint Monday, saying her bosses are failing to enforce livestock grazing rules on public lands a…
Bureau of Land Management in the San Luis Valley
The illegal grazing has gone unchecked for years on the nearly 250,000 acres she manages and her constant pleas for enforcement, which must be authorized by her supervisors, have gone unheeded, she said. Shawcroft has documented damage to the land and riverbanks during inspections, including with photographs, and has heard repeated complaints from ranchers who pay to use BLM land.
The Bureau has the power to impound livestock or levy fines, but managers are timid because they fear another armed standoff similar to the one led by the Bundy family in 2014 in Oregon, Shawcroft said. In that case,, his family and an armed militia organized a standoff with federal agents who had come to round up the rancher’s cows that were illegally grazing on federal land.
Under federal law, livestock are allowed to graze on Bureau of Land Management when a rancher holds a permit authorizing the land use. Permits are passed down through families and rarely become available for purchase. The livestock is fouling the water. And the animals are eating grass and young willow trees down to the ground along the banks.
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