Officials Invite Violence Over Pact, Group Says

A group of environmental workers contends that San Bernardino County officials with a conservative political agenda are undermining a landmark federal desert protection pact--and even implicitly inviting vigilante violence.

County officials say they are simply trying to preserve a rural way of life. But in the process, they have resurrected a bitter ideological battle over whether preservation of the desert requires restrictions on ranching and mining.

The Sacramento-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, whose members include forest rangers, scientists and activists, has asked the San Bernardino County Grand Jury and the state attorney general’s office to investigate whether county officials--including the sheriff and a county supervisor--have committed any crimes, such as obstruction of justice.

“We believe San Bernardino County officials are acting under color of government authority, and abusing that authority, in order to further personal philosophic goals at the expense of protecting public interest,” the group wrote to the grand jury and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

In a series of moves reminiscent of the broader “Sagebrush Rebellion” movement against federal restrictions on Western public land, San Bernardino County officials have clashed with federal rangers attempting to protect 11.5 million acres of fragile desert from the eastern Sierra to the Mexican border.

Among the actions:

* County Supervisor Bill Postmus, an outspoken social conservative whose district includes much of the high desert, revoked an agreement that had allowed the U.S. Bureau of Land Management free use of county dumps to deposit desert trash collected by volunteers.

* County Sheriff Gary Penrod canceled an agreement that had coordinated law enforcement in the desert, preventing federal forest rangers from enforcing state and local laws against such things as drunk driving and vandalism.

* Some county officials have suggested that local ranchers, unhappy with federal restrictions on their land, might resort to violence--and have said they don’t want sheriff’s deputies in the line of fire if it happens.

The county officials make no bones about it: They are unhappy with provisions of a legal settlement, reached in January, that limit cattle grazing and mining in the desert.

“These [activities] are traditions of our county,” said Ron Perret, Penrod’s deputy chief of field operations for the desert area.

The land protection deal was signed to settle a lawsuit filed last year by several environmental organizations and public advocacy groups. The agreement imposed restrictions on activities that threaten fragile plants and animals--banning grazing on 1.3 million acres of tortoise habitat, for example, and closing roads on 800,000 acres.

Some say the county has overstepped its authority by reacting so dramatically to the restrictions. Enforcing the Endangered Species Act and protecting federal land is a function of the U.S. government, they say, not the local sheriff or the Board of Supervisors.

“There is an agenda here to prevent BLM from enforcing that court order,” said Karen Schambach, California coordinator of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “They are using these things as leverage to influence the BLM.”

The dispute has resurrected a tense debate over land rights and the perception among many local residents that the government’s campaign to preserve and protect sensitive land has infringed on individual rights and economic pursuits, especially ranching in the Mojave Desert.

No one personifies that resurrection more than Dave Fisher, a third-generation cattle rancher who oversees a sprawling, 155,000-acre spread southeast of Barstow.

About 115,000 acres of that land is owned by the federal government--”we the people,” as Fisher puts it. The desert protection settlement, designed largely to protect the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise, will prohibit Fisher from using the western third of the ranch for cattle grazing for much of the year.

Fisher is not impressed with the campaign to save the tortoise.

“There is no endangered species in the United States of America that generates one red cent for the economy,” Fisher said. He, like the county officials protesting the settlement, insists that cattle and tortoises can get along just fine.

“Here they are, advocating the elimination of a historical livelihood: cattle ranching,” Fisher said. “They are advocating the elimination of the economy this livelihood has produced for the high desert. And they are exalting the tortoise above mankind.”

By all accounts, there are many in San Bernardino County’s high desert who agree with Fisher that people come first--certainly before homely tortoises. Reflecting the belief of many others, Brad Mitzelfelt, Postmus’ chief of staff, called the settlement a “sweetheart deal” between the BLM and environmentalists.

Schambach and other critics of the county’s recent conduct acknowledge those feelings among residents, and say it’s not the politics they resent as much as the tone.

They cite, for example, a recent announcement by Assemblyman Phil Wyman (R-Tehachapi), in which he referred to BLM agents as “rogue bureaucrats,” the environmental advocates as “extremists” and the campaign to limit cattle grazing as a “police state.”

Later, Penrod’s letter canceling the law enforcement agreement intimated that angry cattlemen might take up arms to protect their businesses and ranches.

“I do not wish to be associated with any Bureau of Land Management law enforcement personnel who may be precipitating possible violent range disputes through their official action,” the sheriff wrote.

Wyman could not be reached for comment. Penrod would not address the debate himself, referring calls to his deputy, Perret, who conceded that “there is no indication that there is going to be any violent reaction” to the land restrictions.

“It was a general statement,” Perret said of Penrod’s letter. “When you are dealing with people in their belief that their rights are being violated, it is very difficult to tell what they are going to do. But there is no indication that any violent reaction will come out of this.”

But such “incendiary” language, Schambach said, brings back memories of the high desert’s vigilante days--when BLM employees did not feel safe wearing uniforms in public or driving government vehicles and sometimes couldn’t get served in restaurants.

Schambach and others believe the officials’ words could be viewed by some residents as permission to use violence to stave off the BLM. In its July 12 letter to Lockyer and the county grand jury, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility wrote that it “deplores the rhetoric employed by public officials who would advance their own political agenda through the fomenting of violence toward federal employees.”

“We just executed Timothy McVeigh, who somehow thought it was OK for him to kill federal employees and their children,” Schambach said. “There are wackos out there who will listen to people who speak with authority and think this gives them some kind of permission to take the law into their own hands.”

The BLM, meanwhile, says it has no choice but to enforce the agreement. This spring, a federal judge warned that he would hold federal officials in contempt of court if they do not honor the promises of the settlement.

In the meantime--though ranchers have appealed part of the settlement and a hearing on the matter is set next week in Barstow--the BLM plans to move ahead with provisions of the settlement.

“We know that it’s very controversial,” said Jan Bedrosian, a BLM congressional and legislative affairs specialist in Sacramento. “There is a lot of public concern. But these are responsibilities that we have to carry out.”