BRIGHAM CITY -- With construction expected to begin any day now, public support for the Ruby Pipeline is disappearing quickly over what some ranchers are calling "blackmail money."
Ranchers and local government agencies recently learned that El Paso Corp., the owner of the Ruby Pipeline, has entered into a $20 million contract to remove the threat of litigation by Western Watersheds Project, whose executive director, Jon Marvel, has stated "it is time to end public grazing."
Details of the contract are sketchy and leave ranchers in Utah, Wyoming and Nevada worried about the possibility of losing their grazing rights on federal land.
"We are in the dark ... all we know is what Jon Marvel has told the press, what Western Watersheds has told the press," said Grant Gerber, an attorney from Elko County, Nev., who is helping spread the word about the contract. "We don't know if it is a done deal; all we know is that this freight train is coming down the track at us, and we need to get involved right now to see what they are going to do."
Every seat in the Box Elder County Commission chamber was filled Tuesday with ranchers and government officials from Utah, Wyoming and Nevada who came to learn more information about the contract and what it would mean for them.
Gerber was accompanied by Elko County Commissioner Demar Dahl, who said he felt like he had been stabbed in the back after offering his support to the Ruby Pipeline project during the three-year process of obtaining the necessary permits.
"Ruby Pipeline should back out of the contract, but they say they can't," Dahl said. "I am not convinced that they can't. I think they need to find a way to do it."
The rumor that had people concerned was that the money put up by El Paso Corp. could be used to purchase grazing permits. Presently, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 allows the Secretary of the Interior to issue grazing permits to "settlers, residents and other stock owners" with preference given to those who live within or near the district where the land is located.
"Under federal code, you guys don't have any rights to buy or own permits," said rancher Tim Munns.
Even so, Marvel has told the Elko Daily Free Press that he would eventually like to petition Congress to change the provisions of the act to allow the federal agency to retire permits purchased in such situations.
"If they get this done and they are able to get the act changed ... our country is going to burn up," Gerber said.
He and Dahl maintain that the loss of grazing rights would be catastrophic to Nevada, which is already seeing an enormous increase in wildfires since the decline of grazing permits in the 1980s. Livestock grazing decreases the fuel source for wildfires, and while grazing does not eliminate wildfires, it can help make them smaller.
The ramifications would be similar throughout the western United States.
The 675-mile Ruby Pipeline will begin in Wyoming, cross Northern Utah and Nevada and end in Oregon. The pipeline is 42 inches in diameter and has the capacity to deliver up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Loren H. Locher, the regional director of government affairs for El Paso Corp., said the $20 million contract was purely a business decision, one that is surrounded by a lot of misinformation.
"We understand that this can be a very poor thing and a very bad thing. We also understand that you know how it is to do business," Locher said.
Locher said the contract came about when Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Association formally objected to the construction of the pipeline and threatened to tie up the process in court.
"We thought we would solve the issue by negating the issues," Locher said.
In order to avoid lengthy litigation, El Paso Corp. agreed to donate $20 million to establish a fund for habitat protection.
Locher said $15 million will be placed in a third-party 501C3 trust fund for Western Watersheds Project, and the remaining $5 million will be paid to the Oregon Natural Desert Association. El Paso will contribute the money over 10 years.
"That's like blackmail money," said rancher Tim Munns.
Additionally, the agreement calls for the creation of a three-member committee that will determine how the funds are to be spent.
The contract currently calls for that committee to comprise one representative of Western Watersheds Project, one from El Paso and a third member to be determined jointly.
Locher also said the contract does not allow any money to be used for litigation, nor does it allow for the purchase of grazing permits at auction.
Additional details are not available to the public because of a confidentiality clause in the contract, Locher said.
"They don't give a rat's you-know-what if they can be bought off for $15 million," said Kerry Kunzler, a Park Valley rancher.
Ken Spackman, chairman of West Box Elder Conservation District, urged county commissioners to do whatever it takes to represent the people of Box Elder County.
"Western Watersheds is a big threat to the Box Elder Conservation District," he said. "Eighty to 90 percent of the people in my area rely on public property at some point. ... we are behind you in whatever we can do to stop this."
Box Elder Commission Chairman Rich Van Dyke said he first learned of the contract between Western Watersheds and El Paso last Friday.
"It was quite a shock," he said.
He and Commissioners Jay Hardy and Brian Schaffer met Tuesday afternoon with commissioners from Nevada and Wyoming to discuss their options.
Van Dyke said they have decided to create a coalition of counties that will work on some form of negotiations to make sure landowners in all three states are protected.
However, Van Dyke said it is unclear just what direction those negotiations might take, and for now commissioners are still collecting information.
While Gerber said El Paso should just pull out of the contract, there also has been some discussion about the creation of an advisory committee that would allow counties and ranchers to have more say on how that money is spent.
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