The Salt Lake Tribune

Two groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday in Washington, D.C., aimed at forcing the Interior Department to implement its management plan for grazing in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Great Old Broads for Wilderness seek to compel Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to implement the 1999 grazing plan the groups say has been ignored when the Bureau Land Management renews leases in the area surrounding Lake Powell along the Utah-Arizona border.

"The Park Service recognized itself the livestock was causing damage to the resources up there so they formulated this management plan," said Greta Anderson, a botanist and range restoration coordinator for the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity. "So what we want is for them to enforce it."

A telephone call to the recreation area headquarters in Page, Ariz., seeking comment Friday was not immediately returned.

In Washington, Interior spokesman John Wright said the department had not yet reviewed the lawsuit and could not comment.

In 1999, the Park Service developed a grazing management plan that recognized that livestock was damaging vegetation, stream areas, archaeological sites and recreation, according to the center. Since then, however, the Park Service has failed to ensure that the BLM followed the plan in renewing leases in 24 areas, according to the lawsuit.

To allow stream corridors "to be destroyed by indiscriminate cattle grazing is just not acceptable," said Rose Chilcoat, program director for Great Old Broads for Wilderness.

Veronica Egan, executive director of Great Old Broads, said in a statement, “I've seen livestock degrade streams and springs, their banks trampled into mud, vegetation cut down to the nub, live soils crushed into dust, and cultural sites covered in cowpies. We tried several times, with letters and discussions, to get the secretary to live up to her obligations, but the necessary changes have not been made.”