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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Kane and Garfield counties will not be allowed to continue their court challenge over the issuance of grazing permits to a conservation group in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell on Friday ruled the counties failed to prove economic harm from the Bureau of Land Management's sale of monument grazing permits to the Grand Canyon Trust seven years ago.
"The counties could not prove actual injury. They couldn't really say how they were hurt by what happened," said Grand Canyon Trust executive director Bill Hedden. "And what the counties did present was set aside by the judge because of its highly speculative nature."
The Grand Canyon Trust, based in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Moab, spent $1.5 million to purchase about 350,000 acres worth of monument grazing permits from 1999 to 2001 in what were deemed environmentally sensitive areas.
Earlier this year, an administrative law judge rejected protests the county had lodged with the Interior Department over the permit sales.
In the ruling, Campbell said the counties failed to document "redressable injury," dismissing claims of lost property values and sales tax revenues as "nebulous at best" and "insufficient to confer standing in a suit against the federal government."
Campbell did allow several ranchers to continue with their claims and gave two others a chance to amend their complaints to rejoin the lawsuit.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
