FOREST SERVICE TO UPHOLD GRAZING RIGHTS ON ELKHORN RANCH, DORGAN SAYS
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
CONTACT: Justin Kitsch
or Brenden Timpe
PHONE: 202-224-2551
(BISMARCK, N.D.) --- U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) has received the commitment of the U.S. Forest Service that the law he wrote to ensure grazing rights on the Elkhorn Ranch in the Badlands will be followed. Dorgan received the commitment when he personally spoke to Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell last week about this issue.
The agreement between ranchers, grazing association members and state and local officials is that when Eberts Ranch, which included the site of the Theodore Roosevelt Elkhorn Ranch, was purchased by the federal government, the grazing rights would be re-assigned by the Medora Grazing Association so that there would continue to be economic activity on that land.
The Forest Service’s Bismarck office proposed that the land be used for a forage reserve rather than ongoing grazing activity.
Dorgan said he expects the Forest Service to follow the agreement and the law as it was written, and the chief of the Forest Service confirmed that is exactly what the agency will do.
“Reaching an agreement to accomplish the sale of the ranch where Teddy Roosevelt’s cabin once stood was very difficult,” Dorgan said. “The Governor, the Congressional Delegation and the ranchers all reached an agreement. And I spelled that agreement out in the law that authorized the purchase. I have been concerned that the Forest Service has been trying to find a way around that law. I have now been assured by the Chief of the Forest Service that the agreement will be honored as written, and the efforts of the Bismarck office of the Forest Service to change it will cease.”
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