Western Watersheds Project v. Steve Ellis

This appeal involves an attorneys’ fee dispute that added a rancorous coda to long-running grazing permit litigation in Idaho that was all ably overseen by the district court. The plaintiff, Western Watersheds Project (“WWP”), originally filed this action in 2004 challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (“BLM”) renewal of grazing permits in the Jarbidge Resource Area (“JRA”), covering a large expanse of Southern Idaho. In 2005, the district court ruled in a published opinion that WWP’s challenge had merit and that the BLM had violated federal statutes by inadequately protecting habitat of threatened, endangered, or sensitive species. See Western Watersheds Project v. Bennett (WWP I), 392 F.Supp.2d 1217, 1227-29 (D.Idaho 2005).

The parties in 2006 entered into what they thought was a settlement of the en tire dispute, but in July of 2007 a massive fire changed the situation dramatically. The BLM then allowed grazing on unburned areas to continue, and after taking several months to regroup, began issuing new grazing authorizations. WWP successfully challenged the post-fire grazing decisions and authorizations as inadequately protecting wildlife habitat, but the district…