312 



I have gone into detail in describing our experience with 

 the ecosystem project for a special reason. In great 

 generalities you heard ahout local participation in the 

 planning effort. You heard also from members of the 

 Coalition of Counties about the participation of local 

 government in the planning effort. However, our experience 

 demonstrates the absolute refusal of the ecosystem project 

 team to allow participation by a county which has in place a 

 viable county land use plan and which has planning expertise 

 as to the lemds in our Coxinty. Our esqperience is detailed 

 here for you so that there can be no accusation that we are 

 just generally con^ilaining . The details are provided sc 

 that you can have specific information from which to 

 question the representations which have been made to yoii 

 that there has been local input emd that there has been 

 coR^liance with the statutory requirements of coordination 

 of planning wich local governments. Our experience as to 

 the lack of local input is consistent with che expression of 

 Dr. Rathbun as to the lack of local participation: 



During the period the science teams did their 

 f inventories, there was no general public involve- 

 ment. They operated in a vacuum. People 

 throughout the area, including many scientists 

 working in the field, inside and outside of 

 agencies, academics and researchers, as well 

 as the general public, have good ideas and 

 information about the land and resources 

 throughout the area. They were excluded from 

 the process because there was no public input. 



(Letter from Dr. James Rathbun dated May 9, 1996] 



3. THERE ARE CRITICAL, FATAL FLAWS AS TO ACCURACY OF THE 

 CONTENTS OF THE GRAZING PORTIONS OF THE EIS. 



I cannot detail here for you all the planning and 

 accxiracy flaws which have been detected in the BIS by our 

 Committee and by other range experts who have now had the 

 opportunity to review che draft. But, I will review for you 

 just a few of the many flaws found in only one Chapter of 

 the draft of the Upper Columbia River Basin BIS: Chapter 2 

 "Affected Environment " - - "Rangelands" . 



(1) On page 6, the comments relate to the 

 adverse impact of grazing on vegetation and soil dwelling 

 species. The comments are all negative, and do not relate 

 any of the scientific information which is available to show 

 that livestock grazing, and ranchers' improving management 

 skills, have had positive impact on improvement of vast' 

 portions of the rangelcuxds in the west. There is an i 

 abundance of such positive evidence, and it is available in 



