{"id":70248,"date":"2016-10-14T17:32:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T23:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blms-grazing-fund-benefits-ranchers-in-montezuma-county\/"},"modified":"2016-10-14T23:32:05","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T23:32:05","slug":"blms-grazing-fund-benefits-ranchers-in-montezuma-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blms-grazing-fund-benefits-ranchers-in-montezuma-county\/","title":{"rendered":"BLM\u2019s grazing fund benefits ranchers in Montezuma County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Garth
Garth Nelson, a Bureau of Land Management range scientist, discusses conditions on Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in 2015 as the Wallace family listens in.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Board of Grazing Advisors for the Southwest BLM District swung through Montezuma County last week.<\/p>\n

The board doles out funding for range improvements needed by local ranchers. The funds are derived from fees paid by ranchers to graze BLM lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwelve percent is returned to the counties, where the fees are generated to pay for infrastructure improvements,\u201d said board member Ross Allen.<\/p>\n

The fund has a budget of $50,000 and typically pays $500 to ranchers with qualifying rangeland projects, including fencing, stock trails, habitat improvement, predator control, wells, livestock tanks, pond construction and pond cleaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it benefits grazing and helps the permittee, we will consider it,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n

This year, local ranchers have received $5,000 to clean out 10 different ponds of silt. Last year, seven ponds were maintained using the funding.<\/p>\n

Officials said approval of projects can get delayed by required environmental reviews. But including the projects in grazing-permit renewals is seen as a solution to the backlog.<\/p>\n

It was noted that the fund does not help pay for fencing separating private from federal grazing allotments because that is seen as a benefit for a landowner. However, funding for fencing between allotments, or between different categories of federal lands is allowed.<\/p>\n

Robbie LeValley, public lands director of the Colorado Cattleman\u2019s Association, reported on lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., for grazing funding for public land agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cLobbying at the nation level protects range dollars at the local level,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The group promotes good grazing practices and fights national standards and range-science methodologies that are not considered practical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe explain that a one-size-fits-all standard is not effective,\u201d LeValley said, such as for grass height.<\/p>\n

An update on the status of grazing allotments in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was given by Mike Jensen, a range specialist for the Tres Rios BLM District.<\/p>\n

An initial plan to restock allotments in the monument was challenged in 2015 by environmental groups, including Western Watersheds, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, and Grand Canyon Trust.<\/p>\n

As a result, additional land-health assessments and monitoring are being done to determine what level of grazing the land can support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe received push back on an earlier decision to authorize grazing there, so we put the breaks on and are reassessing so we are in a better position moving forward,\u201d Jensen said.<\/p>\n

He said there are 16 applicants from local ranchers interested in grazing the land if it is opened up, including one for sheep.<\/p>\n

For more information on funding from the BLM Board of Grazing Advisors, contact Mike Jensen at (970) 882-6828 or email m50jense@blm.gov<\/a><\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Permittees get reimbursed for range improvements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,1398,60,1263,195],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-70248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-livestock-farming","tag-montezuma-county","tag-ranching","tag-u-s-bureau-of-land-management"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70248"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=70248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}