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The settlement filed Monday in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ federal court calls for the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider four existing grazing leases within the conservation area about 80 miles southeast of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. The agreement with environmentalists gives the agency eight months to determine if grazing is compatible with protections for several endangered plants and animals in the area.

An earlier analysis by the bureau identified damage from livestock in parts of the 47-mile-long river preserve.

“If they just look at their own information, they’ve got to acknowledge that they have to keep cows out of there,â€� said Cyndi Tuell, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and New Mexico director for Western Watersheds Project, one of three environmental groups that sued the BLM in 2020.

The settlement also lays out specific steps the bureau must take right away to control legal and trespass grazing in the conservation area.

Those measures include fixing downed fences, removing unauthorized livestock and promptly responding to reports of stray cows, along with limits on where and how permitted grazing is conducted in sensitive areas.

That’s “a big win� as far as Tuell is concerned.

She said visitors have been logging complaints about cattle along the river for years, but the problem persists. You can probably find cows where they’re not supposed to be there on any given day of the year, Tuell said.

As a result, endangered plants such as the Huachuca water umbel are being eaten and trampled to the edge of extinction.

“These species are really close to being wiped out of these areas, and we don’t have any time to waste,� Tuell said.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, BLM officials said they "worked in good faith to come to this settlement," reaffirming their commitment to the resource management plan that was adopted for the conservation area in 2019.

"We look forward to continued engagement with our stakeholders through the planning process outlined in the settlement," bureau officials said in their statement.

Monday’s agreement settles a lawsuit brought two years ago by Western Watersheds Project, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, which sued the BLM over that 2019 management plan. The groups argued that by allowing grazing in the conservation area, the bureau was violating the federal legislation that established the preserve in the first place.

Todd Tucci is senior attorney for Advocates for the West, which represented the three environmental groups.

He said Congress explicitly directed the BLM in 1988 to “conserve, protect, and enhance� the conservation values of the riparian corridor that extends north from the U.S.- Mexico border.

“Since that time, the bureau has manufactured every excuse to justify continued grazing within this national treasure,� said Tucci in a written statement. “We are pleased the bureau has finally agreed to take a hard look at the impacts of grazing within the San Pedro.�

No one has filed more complaints with the agency about trespassing cattle than Robin Silver, the co-founder of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥-based Center for Biological Diversity, which helped push to have the Huachuca water umbel listed as endangered in 1997. Silver said he hopes the settlement will “serve as the beginning of the end of permitted grazing on the San Pedro River.â€�

“There is no place for riparian cow grazing in the desert Southwest, especially along the San Pedro where the Riparian National Conservation Area was created to protect riparian values,� he said in a written statement.

Western Watersheds Project deputy director Greta Anderson agreed.

“No one visits the San Pedro Riparian NCA to see cow pies, trampled vegetation, muddy waters and ruined wildlife habitats,� she said in a statement. “The bureau needs to reconsider its priorities and truly ‘conserve, protect, and enhance’ the area, as it is directed to do by law. Continued livestock use is incompatible with that direction.�

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