[env-trinity] Redding.com: North State ranchers against grazing regulations

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.redding.com/news/local-news/north-state-ranchers-against-grazing-regulations_27383913 

North State ranchers against grazing regulations
Damon Arthur 
6:00 PM, Jan 14, 2015
5:14 PM, Jan 15, 2015
REDDING, California - State water officials who came to Redding to hear what residents and ranchers thought about a proposed grazing regulation program got an overwhelmingly negative response Thursday.
People interested in the proposed Grazing Regulatory Action Project filled the Redding City Council Chambers on Thursday to learn about the program and comment on it.
Among the 48 people who spoke during the morning meeting, nearly all of them said they were against further regulation they didn’t think was necessary.
“We don’t need the state up here. We’re doing just fine,” Bill Flournoy of Modoc County told representatives of the state Water Resources Control Board.
State water officials are concerned about possible livestock waste getting into streams and degrading water quality. Cattle and other livestock can also walk in springs and on stream banks, causing sedimentation.
Animals on stream banks also kill vegetation that keeps streams cool and prevents erosion, said Matt St. John, executive officer of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.
While water officials said they haven’t yet decided how grazing would be regulated, ranchers said they were certain they didn’t need state oversight.
Ellington Peek, 86, who owns Shasta Livestock Auction Yard in Cottonwood, told state officials he has been drinking out of mountain streams for years and it hasn’t hurt him.
He echoed other ranchers who said they already take measures to keep cattle from ruining creeks and rivers.
“We’ve already got too much government as it is,” Peek said.
Others said the cost of regulating grazing could cut ranchers’ profits and drive some out of business.
Billie Roney, whose family runs cattle in Lassen and Tehama counties said the proposed regulation could make cattle manure the new spotted owl because of the effect it would have on cattle ranchers.
Putting the spotted owl on the federal endangered species list in the early 1990s is widely blamed for devastating the logging industry and hurting rural communities.
St. John state officials will compile the comments from the meeting, as well as input from two other meetings around the state. The comments will help guide the state when drawing up proposed grazing regulations, he said.
There also will be further meetings with ranchers, environmental groups and others interested in grazing and water quality, he said. Water officials are expected to take proposed regulations to the state water board in 2016, St. John said.
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