Ruling Lets U.S. Lift Bars on Developing Public Land

In a major setback for environmentalists, a federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the Reagan Administration to lift restrictions on mining and development on as many as 180 million acres of federal land in the West, including up to 10 million acres in California.

The decision, handed down in Washington by U.S. District Judge John Pratt, covers some lands in California that have been designated as environmentally sensitive.

The California director of the Bureau of Land Management, which administers the acreage, said the decision would result in balanced land use, including environmental safeguards. But a spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation, which has fought the move in court since 1985, said it could lead to increased mining and commercial development on heretofore undeveloped land.

In announcing his decision, the judge settled--at least temporarily--a lawsuit brought three years ago by the National Wildlife Federation.

The federation claimed in the suit that former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt began in 1981 to remove restrictions on the federal lands in question to open them to commercial development and mining without carrying out required environmental assessments or allowing public comment.

When the suit was filed, Pratt issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Interior Department from acting. But his ruling Friday lifted the restraining order and dismissed the case on grounds that the federation had no standing to sue because it could not show that its members were injured by the government’s action.

In a telephone interview, Federation attorney Norman Dean said the federation would file an immediate appeal.

“It is fair to say that if this decision is sustained on appeal it will have a major adverse effect on public lands and it would be a significant loss for environmentalists and others who care about Western public lands,” Dean said.

He noted, for example, that some of the land was near Grand Canyon National Park.

However, the decision was applauded by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administers the lands for its parent agency, the Interior Department.

In Sacramento, BLM state director Ed Hastey told The Times that 9 million to 10 million acres in California would be affected by the decision, including 500,000 acres in the El Centro area that would be opened up for gold mining.

Hastey strongly defended the BLM’s management of the lands, which he said would protect environmentally sensitive areas.

“We’re not opening these lands up for rape and ruin. We’re responsible managers,” Hastey said. “ . . . We’re not in the business of selling off large amounts of acreage.”

Hastey said some of the land may be included in a desert wilderness area proposed in legislation sponsored by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), but that already is included in a desert plan developed by the BLM. “We don’t intend to open those lands for mining, oil lease or development,” he said.

Environmentalists, however, have long criticized the BLM’s management of the desert. Cranston’s bill, which he plans to reintroduce in the next session of Congress, was largely in response to those concerns.

Hastey noted that if the court’s decision is upheld on appeal it would allow the BLM in California to trade to private land owners between 3,000 and 4,000 acres of remote land for more accessible and valuable acreage needed to protect endangered species such as the fringe-toed lizard.

Moreover, he said the BLM would be free to release to Riverside and San Bernardino counties desert dump sites already managed by those counties.

In Washington, BLM spokesman Bob Johnson told the Associated Press the agency would immediately launch a review of land management decisions stalled by the three-year injunction.

Appeal Promised

However, Dean, the National Wildlife Federation attorney, told The Times that an appeal would be filed within the next several days.

“In the short term, a lot of this land is vulnerable to being developed. That is why we’re concerned about appealing this as soon as possible,” he said. Dean said the federation would ask Pratt to keep the injunction in place pending an appeal.

Dean said he expected the appeal to continue the matter well into the next Administration.

If the government ultimately prevails, he said, much would depend upon the next President.

“If the new Administration is determined to continue Secretary Watt’s desire to sell off a lot of this land or continue to allow a great deal of it to be opened for mining or other development, the impact could be significant,” Dean warned.

Under BLM procedures, restrictions are placed on almost all of the 180 million acres it administers in 17 Western states. These restrictions are known as “classifications” and “withdrawals”--meaning the land is withdrawn from commercial use--and they can limit a single activity, such as mining, or impose several limitations on a given piece of land.

The Wildlife Federation filed suit after Watt began removing “classifications” and “withdrawals” from wilderness lands.

By the time the Wildlife Federation filed its suit in 1985, the BLM had already reclassified 20 million acres, about 7,000 mining claims had been staked and several hundred oil and gas leases had been issued.