A lawsuit targeting ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore will proceed, after a judge last Friday denied the federal government’s bid to dismiss the suit entirely.
But Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, a U.S. District Court judge in the Oakland division, did grant the Department of Justice’s request that the three environmental groups bringing the suit refile their claim against the National Park Service to specify which ranching authorizations they are challenging.
Ranchers, united under a newly reconstituted Point Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association, say they plan to intervene in a battle that threatens to derail the ranch management plan, a draft of which was supposed to be released this year and which held the promise of longer leases, diversification and guidance on the management of free-ranging tule elk.
On Wednesday, plaintiffs and defendants told the judge that the environmental groups plan to request a preliminary injunction on Aug. 12. They did not specify what the injunction would seek to halt, but the seashore has agreed to stop working on the ranch management plan between now and Aug. 17.
Meanwhile, environmental groups are celebrating the ruling as a first major victory. “We are pleased that the court agreed with us that the Park Service has a mandatory duty from Congress to ensure that Point Reyes National Seashore is managed under a current General Management Plan and will be proceeding with the litigation,” said Chance Cutrano, the director of special projects and strategic initiatives for the Resource Renewal Institute, one of the plaintiffs, in an email on Tuesday.
In February, the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project filed a lawsuit in federal court that challenges the ongoing ranch management plan process, claiming that the park should update its 36-year-old general management plan first. They also claimed that ranching leases and other kinds of authorizations over the past six years have been illegal because the park has not conducted proper environmental review.
The county has taken an interest in the suit; supervisors decided in April to attempt to intervene and become co-defendants, though they have not yet formally made a motion to do so.
Last month, the Department of Justice argued in court filings that the lawsuit should be thrown out because there is no legal requirement for precisely when federal parks must update general plans, leaving a judge with no authority to weigh in.
But in her order, filed on June 15, Judge Armstrong wrote that such reasoning “lacks merit,” as federal law requires parks to update plans in a “timely manner.” That timeframe might sound vague, but that doesn’t mean a federal judge can’t weigh in, she wrote, explaining that the park “has leeway in deciding when to revise a [general plan, but] it remains statutorily obligated to do so in a ‘timely manner.’”
The Justice Department also argued that the lawsuit inappropriately targeted an entire ongoing ranching program, as opposed to a discrete final action. Judge Armstrong likewise said that argument was baseless, as ranching authorizations are “subject to judicial review” under federal law.
The only argument the judge found persuasive was the Justice Department’s request for more specificity on exactly which ranching authorizations are being challenged, as the lawsuit does not enumerate them. “It is unclear whether the authorizations listed on the NPS’s website represent the entire constellation of challenged agency actions, or whether additional authorizations are at issue,” she wrote.