Owyhee Initiative–A Model?
As the second Obama term draws to a close, concern over the question of wilderness protection for the Owyhee Canyonlands has been growing. The chasm separating proponents from opponents seems as deep as the canyon itself. Some believe success of the Owyhee Initiative (OI) across the border in Idaho could suggest a way out. For example, Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, who played a key role in the negotiations has pointed to the OI as a model for the Oregon reaches of the Canyonlands. The recent publication of John P. Bieter, Jr’s Showdown in the Big Quiet: Land, Myth, and Government in the American West (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2015) is thus most timely.
Bieter’s approach places the conflict over the Owyhee Canyonlands in the historical perspective of the interaction among land, myth and government. Of the three elements, myth is central, and Showdown describes how the myth of the West evolved and affected the other elements. This myth was famously given first expression by Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner emphasized the courage, individualism and independence of the frontiersmen operating in the wide open range with few constraints and a “bountiful opportunity” to live off the land. In the absence of governmental authority, democracy and “grassroots popular sovereignty ruled.” This myth evolved and persisted until the 1970s when new historians began to explore the realities of the Old West. They saw the West as the meeting ground of Latin-, Anglo-, Afro-, Asian- and Native-Americans and challenged Turner’s emphasis on individualism. In the words of one, “The armies of the federal government conquered the region, agents of the federal government explored it, federal officials administered it, and federal bureaucrats supervised the division and development of its resources.” In his conception, the West served as the “kindergarten” of the American state; through developing and governing the West, the state grew in power and influence. Influenced by the work of these historians, Bieter sets out to examine the myth of the West against the realities of the settlement of the Owyhee country. By analyzing specific episodes, he seeks to show how the myth influenced events in Owyhee county.
The early chapters of Bieter’s examination demonstrate that the vaunted independence and self-reliance of the settlers of Owyhee county have been overdrawn. Settlers, cattlemen and miners all looked to local, state (or territorial) and federal government as facilitators, mediators and protectors. Government facilitated and regulated settlement of the Owyhee. The discovery of rich gold and silver deposits led to influxes of miners bent on getting rich, and conflicts arose over competing claims. While most were small squabbles between individuals, the “War on the Mountain” in 1868 between large mining corporations over the rich gold and silver lodes on War Eagle Mountain was of a another order. Mineworkers of the different corporations became the armies of their employers and engaged in fierce underground gunfights. The conflict had to be settled by the intervention of the territorial governor, who dispatched troops. While the degree of violence, writes Bieter, “reinforced a western ethic commonly portrayed in [later] books and films…. the conflict primarily provided an opportunity for government to mobilize, and the shortage of local government officials meant that the territorial and federal government[s] intervened. In the process, government involvement extended from facilitator for the developers to conflict mediator, and set the precedent for an ever-increasing role in the west.”
The most-storied involvement of government in the development of the West is in the conflicts between settlers and the Indians. They and the stories arising from them justified the “civilizing mission” of the settlers, though the notion of a White vs Indian war simplified complexities by blurring differences of race and purpose. Indians, for example, often fought on both sides. But resolving the conflicts and eliminating the threat to Euro-American development of the West created an increasing role for government in protecting settlers and establishing reservations. Bieter uses the unhappy episode of Shoshone Mike, a partially Americanized Indian with the English name of Mike Daggett, to illustrate these points. Much of Mike’s background remains a mystery, but he had close relations with the settlers, working for them and marrying his daughter to one. But that ended when he was accused of killing a settler and fled with his family. They were pursued by a variety of law enforcement officers, including the newly formed Nevada State Police and local sheriffs from Nevada and California. Mike was finally cornered and killed after an extended and bloody pursuit. The incident revealed the frictions among local, state and federal officials and offered a foretaste of persisting tensions among the various levels of government in the West.
Conflict between cattlemen and sheepmen provided a third arena for government intervention. While cattlemen might recognize government ownership of land, they argued that some rangeland was reserved exclusively for cows through “prior right.” Aside from the well-known complaint that sheep overgrazed the land, there was an element of racist bias against immigrant Basque sheepherders. While ranchers sometimes dealt violently with Basque sheepmen, increasingly they turned to range associations and the courts to protect their interests. A case in point was Omaechevarria vs State of Idaho. Secundino Omaechevarria was a Basque herder employed by an Idaho sheepman and was arrested in 1914 for grazing sheep on land “previously occupied by cattle.” The hapless Omaechevarria was a pawn in a struggle between forces beyond him, and he was found guilty. But there was more at stake than the guilt or innocence of an impoverished immigrant. The defense (the herder’s employer) fought the case all the way to the US Supreme Court, which in 1918 decided in favor of the cattlemen. It is not clear what became of Omaechavarria, but Bieter–himself of Basque descent–effectively uses the case as a hook for describing the prejudices and other challenges faced by the Basques in a period of American xenophobia resulting in the Immigration Act of 1924.
The interwar period witnessed evolution of an underlying tension between the western myth and government’s role in the West that held important ramifications for the future. The western myth, says Bieter, was largely a creation of easterners seeking to transfer to the West what had been lost from the “City on the Hill” of the East. The West offered a common sense of heritage and mission. The notion of rugged individualism was epitomized in the characters of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which ran for thirty years, and in the heroes of western films and novels. The best-known title was Owen Wister’s The Virginian, made into a movie starring Gary Cooper. Western novels by Max Brand, Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour gained worldwide popularity. Global sales of L’Amour alone exceeded 100 million, and by the 1950s Western novels constituted some eleven percent of the fiction published in the US. But the western reality was different, and the same period saw a growing presence of government in the West. Western politicians might proclaim the rugged individualism of the westerner, but they nonetheless sought the assistance of New Deal programs such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers subsidies to leave part of their land fallow and to destroy excess livestock. Then in 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act changed the face of the range by removing 142 million acres of western land from potential sale and reserving it for federally regulated grazing. It should be understood that this was not some federal government “overreach” but was sought in order to end the chaos resulting from competition for grazing lands and to ensure the land’s sustainability. In the post-WWII period, however, government intervention and the conservation movement produced a reaction known as the “Sagebrush Rebellion” as cattle, timber and mining interests resisted federal intrusion and the perceived efforts of environmentalists to conserve natural resources at the expense of local economies. Ironically now it was the environmental community that looked to government for support and protection in the way settlers once had.
At this point Bieter’s account makes an interesting digression to describe what could happen if the myth of the West were given too much rein. In his view, “belief in the mythic Old West resembled more conventional religious doctrines.” His example of this is Claude Dallas, a young man from Virginia who loved to read western novels and books about the West and who became steeped in its lore and mythos. Dallas came to Oregon, where he worked on ranches and learned the metier and manner of the cowboy. While his fervor and his willingness to do difficult tasks in difficult fashion initially brought him amusement and derision, his committed work ethic gained him the respect of coworkers and employers and his polite manner, the appreciation of women. Eventually he chose to pursue a Jeremiah Johnson way of life, going off alone into the Owyhee Mountains where he trapped bobcats for the pelts and poached animals for food. When a pair of Idaho State game wardens caught up with him on January 5, 1981, he shot them both and administered a coup de grace to each with his pistol. There ensued a manhunt that was intensely followed by the press and lasted over a year. Many saw in Dallas the embodiment of the myth old-time cowboy and hoped for his escape. Eventually he was caught, but rather than a conviction on the first-degree murder charge brought against him the jury returned a verdict of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to thirty years. Four years later he escaped. He was subsequently caught and at his trial the defense argued that his life had been threatened by prison guards leaving little choice but to flee. Dallas was acquitted of the escape charge, and on February 7, 2005 he was released from prison for the manslaughter conviction.
In the mid 1980’s the story of competing interests in the land took an interesting turn, and parties that had come into conflict with the Sagebrush Rebellion–the ranchers and environmentalists, joined by the Native Americans–found themselves allied against the government that had promoted settlement and created reservations. Bieter’s story is a fascinating tale of bureaucratic machinations–particularly at the Department of Defense, but also in state government–of the sort that leads people to distrust their leaders. But he also credits the efforts of dedicated bureaucrats in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Idaho Department of Fish and Game to protect the resources in their charge. The impetus to coalescence of cattlemen and environmentalists was that the very power that had once given away land–the federal government–now wanted it back for a bombing range. To the existing Saylor Creek Bombing Range of 109,000 acres in Owyhee County the military wanted to add 1.4 million acres. The range was primarily for Mountain Home AFB, and there were suggestions that the base would be closed if the acquisition were not approved. That threat impelled Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus to strongly support the proposal. Ironically, as governor and as secretary of the interior under Jimmy Carter, Andrus had worked hard to protect millions of acres of wilderness. Residents of the town of Mountain Home accused environmentalists of wanting to create “an elite playground for wealthy urban backpackers at the expense of local residents attempting to make a living off the public land,” a charge heard in the current debate over protection for Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands. Conservationists protested that the proposed range violated BLM-proposed wilderness areas and impinged on critical wildlife habitat. In the end, with the help of Idaho Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R), a member of the Armed Services Committee, land for the range was set aside. Shortly thereafter, the Air Force announced plans for a new range in the same part of Owyhee County as the Saylor range though narrower in scope and without low-level supersonic flights and live ordnance. After intense negotiation, agreement was finally reached in July 1999. Though opponents failed to halt the expansion, they felt they had won some concessions. In the end, it turned out that the US Air Force had done the environmentalists a good turn. Bieter cites Craig Gherke of the Wilderness Society: “The Air Force put the Owyhees on the map and forced it to the forefront of the conservation agenda.”
As negotiations over expansion of the bombing range were taking place, President Clinton declared creation in southern Utah of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in 1996. This act raised concerns among cattlemen throughout the West, who viewed it as a threat to grazing allotments. Then in the last weeks of his term, Clinton authorized creation of another eight monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906 and in his remarks pointedly mentioned the future possibility of protection for Idaho’s Owyhee Canyonlands. Environmentalists hoped that the Antiquities Act, which authorized the president to create a monument by executive order, would be used for that purpose Unwilling to trust the federal government, ranchers and the Native Americans were opposed. But county commissioners, who had run for office opposing a national monument, realized the Canyonlands had just missed being included in the January 2001 executive order; protection in some form appeared inevitable. They decided to act and at the end of 2001 announced plans for an “Owyhee Initiative.” They approached groups representing a variety of interests to develop legislation that would protect the Canyonlands and preserve the local culture and economy. Included were the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, the Air Force, Owyhee Cattlemen’s Association, and representatives from hunting organizations and the OHV community. Also approached were the Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society and the Idaho Conservation League; excluded were strong proponents of removing all cattle from the range such as the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), Committee for Idaho’s High Desert (CIHD) and the Sierra Club (which later negotiated a nonvoting role). Senator Mike Crapo agreed to be involved but cautioned that he would pursue in Congress only those matters on which there was working group consensus.
Negotiations were lengthy and collaboration evolved slowly. Much of the discussion occurred during field trips into the lands under consideration. As each side laid out its concerns–access to quality range, water rights and vandalism for the cattlemen, and noxious weeds, species extinction and the lasting effect of trail building for the environmentalists–the members of the working group began to develop personal relationships, come to understand one another’s lives, and find commonalities beyond their points of disagreement. Bieter quotes one rancher as commenting, “We want nearly the same thing. Once that trust and that idea was built, we started working out the details.” Those details were embodied in the Owyhee Initiative Agreement, which was implemented by legislation on March 31, 2009. It included designation of 517,000 acres of wilderness, 55,000 of which was not to be grazed, and designated 316 miles of wild and scenic rivers. Under the agreement, roads were closed, indiscriminate off-road activity controlled, Native American cultural sites protected, and provision made for independent scientific review of data for BLM decisions on grazing. Despite not getting everything they had hoped for, generally all sides of the Working Group were “pretty satisfied.” WWP and others not invited to the table, on the other hand, felt they had been betrayed and left “to sit around and listen to them wheel and deal and give away wilderness.”
Implementation of the OI agreement has not been without critics or challenges, among them changes in BLM wilderness management policy that seemed to violate commitments made in the agreement. But the working group formalized itself into the OI Board of Directors comprising representatives of the original organizations and has worked with the BLM to ensure adherence to policies existing when the wilderness areas were created. It has further enlisted Senator Crapo to introduce legislation to ensure agreement provisions have legislative sanction. The success of the initiative to date has led OI Board members, Senator Crapo, and the editorial board of the Ontario Argus Observer to propose the Idaho Owyhee Initiative as a model for resolving the current question of wilderness protection for Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands. Though the two cases are superficially similar, important differences cannot be ignored. First, the OI parties were able to build on their experience together in opposing expansion of the Saylor Creek Bombing Range. Bieter quotes Craig Gherke of the Wilderness Society, “there would have been no Canyonlands Initiative without the Saylor Creek Bombing Range issue.” There is nothing comparable in Oregon. Second, the initial step was taken by the Owyhee County commissioners, who provided local leadership and support. In contrast, the Malheur County Court (analogue to the county commissioners) has been vocally and adamantly opposed to any form of wilderness protection, such as establishment of a national monument or wilderness designation under the Wilderness Act of 1964. They would have to find some way to back down from that position. Third, proponents have made the Owyhee Campaign a highly visible statewide effort with the majority of supporters coming from urban parts of the state. Residents of Malheur county–especially those directly affected–resent this intrusion into their lives. They particularly take umbrage at the movement to impose a national monument. Throughout eastern Oregon–not just in Malheur County–residents have put up slick posters declaring “No National Monument without A Vote of Congress.” In southeastern Oregon families have been ranching on the same land for as many as five, six or even seven generations; they feel proponents of wilderness protection are dismissive of their history and insensitive to the depth of their attachment to the land. More than one resident has told me they believe their economic livelihood would be “devastated” by a national monument.
Designation of a national monument by executive order would breed even greater resentment. The current climate of growing opposition to public lands in the West portends serious difficulties for the adoption of any form of wilderness protection, but especially so if it comes without local input and discussion. Collaboration is still possible. But to have any chance of success, extensive and thoughtful outreach will be required on both sides. It will be necessary to foster meaningful respect and understanding of one another’s positions and persons. And as the Idaho case has shown, the collaboration cannot end simply with passage into law of a designation of protection. Sustained cooperation will be needed to ensure that whatever has been agreed upon continues to be honored and that any changes are made with agreement on all sides. And that too will require good will and trust on all sides.